Falling Stars
by Achamo
Summary: Nova is on the final stage of its master plan. The distractions fall away one by one; this is the end of the line. So why can't Kaita, Meiru, and their friends shake the feeling that something isn't right? Sequel to String Theory and What's on Your Mind.
1. Prologue: As It Stands

Kaita was wide awake.

Somewhere in the house, something was shuffling. It sounded like footsteps. Nobody was ever awake at this hour. Nova footsteps? Something else thrummed away in the background, muffling the shuffling to where Kaita wasn't sure whether or not it was his imagination.

He turned slowly to the side, seeing if he could still hear it, and met his Navi's gaze. "It's the dishwasher, Kaita-kun," Turboman said, concerned. With forced lightness, he said, "It's always made that sound. Why didn't you notice it before, silly?"

"I don't know," Kaita said, though he had a feeling he really did. "I guess..." Tiredly, he said, "You'd warn me if it was trouble."

"Yes, so go to sleep," Turboman said. "You've got school tomorrow, remember?"

"Mm..." Kaita rolled over to the other side of the bed, where the PET's charger light didn't bug him, and shut his eyes. It was Black's fault, of course. Kaita couldn't stop thinking about him or Nova, even though it had been months since he'd last seen any of them. The pause in their activities seemed ominous to him; there were so many questions that had been left unanswered.

The more optimistic side of Kaita liked to think Black would have the answer to all of them. At least, the one who could be thoughtful and almost nice. But he was going to be difficult to talk to; that was the Black that stayed hidden, while the presented one was merciless and cold. And Kaita had no right to expect Black to let that mask drop again. The hacker had said himself that things would return to normal once they were back in Akihara.

But Kaita was back in Akihara, and nothing felt normal. Partly because of that, Netbattling was another thing he took more seriously. Now, he spent just as much time polishing his skills as he did helping out in his dad's repair shop. It had started with that defeat what seemed like an eternity ago, and it had just gotten more obvious after Black had told him to shape up in the forest. Kaita didn't know exactly when it had happened, but he was a Netbattler first and foremost now. Nova would eventually continue to stir up trouble, and Black would be there with them. Certainly, Meiru and Enzan would be fighting as well, but Kaita couldn't just turn his back to what was going on. He felt like he was a part of things now, in a way he never had before. It was another reason he wanted to see hidden-Black; everything felt like it should have been changing, like he was missing something, but that didn't seem to be the case. He needed advice, and he wasn't sure Meiru and Enzan would give it to him.

The worst part was that none of his interest in talking to Black made any sense. Hidden personalities or not, he was still the man whose Navi had almost made scrap out of Turboman. He was still on Nova's side. But the questions kept returning to Kaita: why did Black feel the need to be who he said he was? What were Nova's real goals, anyway?

When would this feeling of dread go away?

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Mary looked out her bedroom window at the sleeping neighborhood, unable to stop thinking.

Atsuki was out there, somewhere. Bullying people around, giving them lip service while he gave them those strange, intense looks. Mary hated people like him, who knew they were strong and used that power to make themselves feel superior. It struck even closer to home for her than her friends, since she was the most defenseless against some big, burly man like Atsuki. His friends were out there, too. The woman, Yumi, who hadn't done very much around Mary but was well-known to Kaita; and the man, Black, who didn't even bother to hide his smugness. Black and Atsuki were different as night and day to some, but they had more in common with each other than Yumi did with either of them. And they ran free under the night sky, hiding in the far-off pinpricks of light from the Densan skyline.

Kaita was worried. Mary hadn't known him long, but she knew enough to be concerned. He'd never had any reason to feel that way before Nova came. But suddenly she and Ring were constantly sparring with him and Turboman, and while she didn't mind being able to use a Program Advance with ease, she'd always pinned him as a more recreational Netbattler. He probably hadn't even cared about the more powerful tricks and strategies before Nova's plague virus gave the whole region a scare.

She shivered, and pulled the sheets closer to herself; seeing Ring bent over with pain in her PET wasn't an image that she cared to remember. It wasn't really the people in Nova that scared her so much as what they were capable of. If the whole of Internet City could be infected in a heartbeat, what would they do when they got serious?

She shook her head and burrowed deeper into the sheets. She wasn't going to lose her friends to some unknown, nebulous threat. It just wouldn't happen.

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To Enzan, Nova was a little like a bad joke; variations of it would pop up only to not catch on and vanish. It had first surfaced before he'd even known what a Net Savior was, in the year immediately following the Gospel incident, and the Net Police had had little trouble stopping them. They'd never made the news. When he and Netto were still battling Darkloids, they'd reappeared, once more a tiny syndicate that the standard Net Police Navi had little trouble stopping. The Net Saviors hadn't been told about them; there were bigger fish to fry. And while he and the others had been trapped in Beyondard, Nova had made a couple of pipes burst.

But they'd been quiet for those four long years after the subway bombing. The subway bombing whose culprit remained unknown. The subway bombing whose victims hadn't all been found before the police decided enough was enough. The subway bombing that had taken a boy away from his family too soon. Four years later, and there were still more questions than answers about that bombing.

Four years later, Nova wasn't a joke anymore. The Net Police were finally paying attention to it, and that was almost all thanks to their new member. Black Hiroki.

To his surprise, Enzan had found a little bit of history on Black, too. He'd made his debut in Ameroupe only a few months before he came to Japan, an accomplice in an incident that had wiped two cities' worth of computers clean and left three people dead. The next place he showed up was Japan—and with his help, Nova had suddenly become the biggest threat in town. And it wasn't just him; his friend, the one who Netbattled using a Darkloid, had been Black's partner in that first crime. Homura Atsuki. His name showed up a few more times before that. Enzan wished he had more to go off of. He was sure these weren't the two criminals' only names, as sure as he was that this new version of Nova meant business.

But the second handle he knew Black went by, the one Sigma had assigned him like a title—"Silver"—got nothing. It was too simple to trace. Yet it bothered him; over five years of fighting criminals, and Enzan had never run into the term before.

The world had seemed relatively small to Enzan—corporate VP, Net Savior, no stranger to jet lag—before.

Now, he was starting to realize just how easy it was to hide in it.

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To say that Yumi was unaware of the changes going on around her would be a slight untruth. Every day, she saw Black vanish into his office, staying inside for hours at a time—if he even bothered to come out at all. And Atsuki was nothing but a pretense; he tried to act nice around her, almost like a bad parody of Black, but his dismissiveness couldn't be hidden.

The Boss had told her to keep track of both of them. He was worried. He'd been worried before, back when Yumi was still a teenager and this side career in cyberterrorism was more for fun than a favor. But Black and Atsuki knew their Boss was worried, and they obviously didn't care. Black was nearly silent at the monitor, focused on making line after line of code spill across the screen. It wasn't like before, when she'd tease him and he'd babble excuses and eventually leave the work for a little fun. He had no time to explain what he was doing, just saying, "It's part of the final project." Atsuki worried her more; he had no set project, yet Yumi would see him in his own office, obviously doing something. He would look at her with his piercing eyes, daring her to try and ask him what he was up to. And there was something about him—certainly his bulk, but some intangible quality as well—that always made her walk away. They were alone in that hallway, and if something happened to her, the Boss would have no one.

Yumi had always thought of herself as street-smart. Making it out of this alive would be her ultimate test.

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A man was slouched in front of his old computer, bought secondhand. They were necessities now, no matter how rich or poor he was, so he had one. There was a well-worn book open next to him describing what he was doing, but he'd been through it so many times that he knew it by heart. A battered PET Advance—the only thing he could afford, the way things were now—was hooked up to the computer. He hit the Enter key, and the smaller device chimed as it came to life. He raised his hands before him; a little melodrama seemed appropriate, and opportunities for it were sadly lacking in his current occupation. "My labor is finally complete," he breathed. A black-suited figure with pink jewels adorning his thicker, white armor appeared in the PET. "My chance for revenge has been born!"

Perhaps he was only a minor player now, but he could somehow sense things were changing. He was determined to be part of that change. He couldn't wait any longer.

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Meiru didn't know what to think.

On the one hand, things were looking up. There had been a few minor cases, but nothing Nova-related; Laika was back where he belonged, and adjusting as well as could be expected; and it seemed Roll was trying to get her a date for the junior prom, much to her embarrassment.

On the other hand, there was something ominous about the peace. Something continued to eat away at Enzan's thoughts, that much she could tell. Judging from how it'd been nearly half a year since the tournament and he still wasn't talking, it was something he didn't think she'd like, or something he thought shouldn't be a concern until later. But knowing things later had never suited Meiru, even if the people keeping secrets thought they were doing it for her own good. Similarly, telling anyone things before he was ready had never been Enzan's strong suit. If she tried to force it out of him, there would be a fight, and with Nova still at large she wasn't sure if they could risk the fallout.

What had happened at the tournament? That seemed to be where it had all started. Black had been his usual obnoxious self, Atsuki had been a little unnerving but nothing she and Enzan couldn't handle, Mary had seemed like a pretty nice girl, and Kaita... had had that day when he seemed on edge, had been understandably upset about his loss, but had returned to normal the next day with no explanation. Perhaps he'd seen something? Or maybe it was nerves, and she was over-thinking this.

Regardless, something definitely had Enzan worried, and she knew she needed to find out what. And above all, Nova had to be stopped before harm could come crashing down on everything she cared about.

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The Boss's eyes were on the monitor at his desk. This was nothing unusual. As the head of Nova, he was always on call to iron out any potential problems or receive reports from his underlings. As he scrolled through window after window, occasionally making a note in a text box off to the side, he only wished what he was doing was odd.

He'd been trying to find a clean way out of this problem since it had arrived on his doorstep almost a year ago, blank-faced and irritatingly polite: eliminating his sponsors' agents before whoever really commanded them tired of Nova and its leader. Black and Atsuki were just the kind of men the Boss hoped to wipe out with the former's own ultimate virus; two-faced thugs, content to be puppets on some other man's strings. The Boss didn't doubt the money he paid them paled to what they got from groveling at their true leader's feet. But he couldn't just stop that cash flow, as that would only make them suspicious. Attack dogs they were, but the Boss knew at least one of them had a brain. Much as he hated it, they continued to get their pay.

In the meantime, he planned out what he'd do after the Devil had been completed—it had to be afterwards, as the Boss doubted he could find another programmer like Black. Outright killing him and Atsuki would be easy. Finding a method of doing it so there was no trace of foul play was harder. And then there was the problem Atsuki posed. Black was physically weak; alone, picking him off was a matter of a rooftop and a firm shove. Atsuki was like his bodyguard, stronger than the average attacker. Both were sharp enough to avoid anything that would pose a threat—they'd never lunched with the Boss or left food or drink opened around the base—and together, any obstacle the Boss could think of would be negated in a matter of seconds. They had to be killed separately; inconvenient, but there was no way around it.

The Boss sighed. "I'm getting ahead of myself." The Yellow Devil's completion was a long way away, even with Black on the job almost constantly now. Right now, it was just a matter of keeping Japan on its toes, weakening the machine before tearing it apart. The Boss grinned. Nothing brought him more joy than imagining all the traitors' and bullies' heads strung up outside his door for all to see, Black's and Atsuki's high above the rest. He'd sponsor his sponsors, and they wouldn't complain - they'd consider themselves lucky to stay in business when so many other organizations were cleansed away. And Yumi—loyal Yumi, the one who really believed!—would be rewarded greatly. Perhaps she'd oversee Japan while her leader moved to other countries. The other agent that was truly his would get his share, too, but Yumi had been there since the beginning. She deserved it more than anyone else.

He took a long sip out of the wineglass on the table, then closed the windows. It was foolish to be researching ways to eliminate Black and Atsuki when they weren't near being finished playing their parts yet—but it all felt so close that it was hard to control the urge.

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In a sea of metal and lights, Black worked.

He had no time for what could be. He'd never given himself time for what had been. So he carried on, much as he had for years, without heed to his own needs or those of anyone else's. Punk knew better than to stop him; why should he? They were essentially the same. There was always some task to carry out, always someone who needed obedient hands to supply whatever was needed. Black had learned long ago to deliver, and so had Punk. They both knew the consequences of saying no.

Black lived and died by his work. It was what was expected.


	2. Spreading Meme

"Air Shoes, slot-in!" Turboman shot into the air, eyes narrowed in concentration. "Minibomb, chain slot-in!" He resisted the urge to grab the Minibombs; they simply appeared below him and dropped to the ground in a steady stream, effectively carpet-bombing anything below. Kaita had gotten the idea from a history class the other day, and Turboman had agreed that it seemed like a keeper. But in practice, the journey from hand to ground had eaten up valuable time. Before, his opponent had picked him off with a Super Vulcan and followed up with a Reflector, making the attack fail miserably. Now, Ring was cringing away from Minibomb blasts as the field was enveloped in smoke.

"Hey! Watch it, de gutsu!" shouted a deeper voice from the side.

"Sorry, Gutsman!" Turboman called as the Air Shoes chip's effect ran out and he dropped from the air. No sooner was he in his crouch than Ring was swiping at him from behind, having used the smoke to cover her approach. He ducked the first hit and shot his leg back as the second whistled past his side.

"Oh!" Ring yelped. Turboman was pretty sure he'd missed her, and he was proven right when she crowed, "Eat this!" Some of the smoke was pushed away by an energy blast. At such a close range, there was little he could do to fully dodge the hit. It nicked his shoulder as he popped a tire out and hurled it at her, scoring a hit down her side.

"Elec Sword, slot-in!" Turboman popped off the other tire and held it up to defend himself as Ring tried to slash at him from his right. They stayed in a stalemate for a second before Ring drew her sword back and aimed lower. By the time Turboman realized it had been a feint, she'd left a cut on his shoulder.

Kaita said, "We'll finish this off now! Energy Bomb, slot-in!"

Even as the orange-speckled bomb appeared in Turboman's hand, Mary knew what was coming. "I doubt that! Barrier, slot-in!" As Turboman shot forward, Ring whipped her hand up to activate the shield. However, Turboman's speed meant she still received some of the draft as he dropped the Energy Bomb next to her. She was thrown into the Barrier and fell to the ground from there.

As Turboman circled around and the Barrier faded, Kaita called, "Mega Cannon, slot-in!"

Turboman leveled it at Ring's head. "It's over."

"Okay, okay! I surrender! ...For now, at least." Ring grinned as she got to her feet. "Not bad, Turboman!"

"Hey, you put up a good fight, too," Turboman said.

"And I beat you the last couple of times, so I don't have too much to worry about," she said, grinning.

"Well, if that's what you want to think..." They walked over to the window displaying a view of the room outside, where their Operators were exchanging similar compliments.

"I like that idea with the Air Shoes and Minibombs, Kaita-kun," Mary said. "But... Well, if I could just suggest something..."

"Go ahead!" said Kaita earnestly.

Mary smiled. "Well, I thought it would help throw the opponent off more if you threw in different bombs with the Minibombs," she explained. "Perhaps come up with a set pattern that only you know, like 'Minibomb, Bug Bomb, Energy Bomb, Minibomb'..."

"Yeah, so they're more disoriented," Kaita said.

"Or better yet, taking more damage," Turboman pitched in.

Kaita grinned and nodded. "Thanks, Mary-chan!"

Gutsman sighed. "I could do that, de gutsu," he complained to Chisao. "I'd knock them both away! ...Not that I'd want to do that to Ring-chan, of course..."

"Gutsman," Chisao said, "I think they could beat us with their hands tied behind their backs."

"No way! They'd be unable to use Battlechips and..." Gutsman caught the look on his Operator's face and sighed. "I know, de gutsu."

Ring turned away from the screen, and a sharp pull on Turboman's arm made him follow her. "Hey, Turboman, could you do me an itty-bitty teeny-tiny little favor?" she asked.

Turboman got the feeling he didn't have much choice. "Sure," he said.

"Brill!" She ran over to a grassy panel in the corner of her homepage and vanished, Turboman warping away after. He appeared in a large, plain area, the edges of which were swallowed by mist. Ring grinned. "Wait for it... Wait for it..." A text window popped up: _Zinger Games presents FarmLand. Now Loading..._ "Behold!" Turboman watched as first grass, then squares of various crops—colorful flowers, peppers, and pumpkins the most prevalent—then trees of all shapes and sizes, and finally cartoonish animals filled the space.

"It looks pretty nice, Ring-chan!" he said, stepping away from the cow that had popped up in his face. Ring beamed.

"Gosh, Turboman! I'm flattered," she said, bringing up a window and 'harvesting' a square of ripe pumpkins. The crops vanished, and the words _+90 Coins_ floated into the air. "But... that's not really what I wanted. Come on, I'll show you." She ducked between two rows of sunflowers, heading for the right side of the area. Turboman followed her to the end of the row, where the thick wall of mist stood. "Y'see, the problem... is this." Turboman followed her through the white curtain, where another blank space and a _Clownman's Farm. Loading..._ sign waited. "Careful of the sheep."

"What does that—" Turboman ducked as a purple sheep, its wool falling out in patches and its teeth bared, hurtled toward him. When it tried for another tackle, he met it in mid-air with a fist. It dropped to the ground and didn't move. His attacker taken care of, he was free to look around. It was nothing like Ring's farm. The grass was dead, the trees' fruit looked more like daggers, and the crops were moldy-looking. "Someone hasn't been taking care of things here," he said, cringing as a bug unearthed itself from a watermelon. There were more rabid-looking animals on the far side, but they hadn't noticed their visitors yet.

"That's not it," Ring said. "These are ripe crops. Same with the trees—don't go near them, either. The fruit drops off."

"Can't this stuff be deleted?"

"Nope. It's slightly different in code to Navis and viruses. We can stun FarmLand objects, but not delete them, and we can't touch plants at all. This has been happening to tons of farms over the past few days - they're trying to work out a patch and stop whoever's doing this, but they said to keep an eye out in the meantime." Ring grinned at Turboman, who somehow knew she was going to say, "That's where you come in!"

Turboman sighed. "I'm keeping watch for you?"

"No, dummy. _With_ me. As you can see, one set of eyes doesn't seem to do the trick." She bounded back over to the divide between farms, and Turboman ran after her. "It doesn't move like a virus—which farm gets it next is completely random. So I bet it's someone's Navi doing this." She stopped once they'd returned to her farm, holding a mitten over her mouth in thought. "Say, your farm's all right, isn't it?"

"I don't have one," Turboman said sheepishly.

" _Whaaaaat?!"_ Ring planted her hands on her hips and lectured, "Nonsense! Everyone today has one! Or should have one. As soon as this mess is all sorted, we're getting you a farm!"

They were interrupted by two windows opening to show Mary and Kaita. "Ring-chan, you aren't trying to get him to stay up with you, are you...?"

"I don't mind if Kaita-kun doesn't," Turboman said.

"Sure, go ahead," Kaita said. "So, wait a second, what's going on?"

"You know about FarmLand, right, Kaita?" Mary asked. "Well, some prankster's been changing the farms so they start attacking the Navis maintaining them." Her eyes inched to the side as she admitted, "To be honest, I appreciate the help. I wouldn't want anything to happen to Ring, and I know how much time she's put into that farm."

"It's going to be the greatest farm ever! And I _won't_ let it be a creepy farm!" Ring took Turboman's hand. "Now, the work begins!"

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Turboman could see why so many Navis liked these farms. When nothing was going on, it was a pretty peaceful space. The sky overhead had darkened to match the one outside, a deep blue with bright stars overhead. They didn't look like they were arranged like the real things, but it was the effect that counted. It ran on a timer; every five minutes, a shooting star passed overhead. Turboman counted it off, lying on the grass— _fifty-eight, fifty-nine, now—_ and spotted the little dart of light. It was the only indication that time was passing. Otherwise, it seemed like the world had been put on hold. Inside this space, there was no indication of the mysterious fates of the other farms... or of the larger problems in the real world.

"Ring?"

"What is it, Turboman?" she said sleepily from the far corner of the farm.

"How do we make them stop worrying?"

For once, Ring didn't have the fast, lighthearted answer. "You know what?" she said quietly. "I don't know."

Turboman squeezed his eyes shut. "I hate this. I hate seeing him like this!"

"So do I," Ring admitted. "But none of us can ignore what's going to happen. They're out there. The other shoe is bound to fall... or however that one goes."

"I know," Turboman said, looking up at the night sky again. "I guess... even though I wish we could do more, we have to stick to doing what we can." With a little more confidence, he continued, "And right now, that means we've got to stand by our Operators."

"Well, duh, we're their Navis!"

"Just like always."

"Yep," Ring said. "Just like always."

They heard the cackling at the same time. Turboman and Ring got to their feet, Ring dismissing the 'night' and reverting it to higher-visibility day with a wave of her hand. The intruder turned to face them, his snowy white fleece bright in the sun. "More Navis?" he wondered mockingly.

"Or are they—yes, I believe they are!" At about the same time Mary and Kaita reconnected to their Navis, a window opened over the part-sheep, part-man's head. His Operator was wearing a plain, shapeless white mask, creating the effect of a blank head over his plain, black suit. His black tie read 'ROFL' in tiny, repeating, white letters. "Turboman and his trusty sidekick Ring!"

"Sidekick? Who are you calling a sidekick?" Ring asked indignantly.

"Believe me, darling, I know all about you two. The newest champions of the safe and acceptable."

"If you're with Nova, I won't show you any mercy," Kaita said.

"Nova? That... _establishment_ ," he said with obvious distaste, "is far too predictable. They don't think hard enough down there. Too _organized_ , too _needy_. No, I am Mr. Meme, and my Navi Sheepman and I work in pure disorder."

"But... why?" Mary wondered. "Why FarmLand?"

Mr. Meme wagged a finger at her. "Now, dear, that should be obvious. For the same reason you go around spending useless money on useless data... for the fun of it! You're better off spending your time on something with an actual purpose, so why does it matter what I do?"

"Because your 'fun' is no fun for us!" Ring detached her pigtails to hang in a swarm around her. "It doesn't matter whether these farms are useful or not! Ring Boomerang!"

"Do you really think that will work?" asked Mr. Meme mockingly. "Do it, Sheepman!" Sheepman easily ducked away from the boomerangs flying at him. As he stood, the fleece covering Sheepman's head and chest grew larger. Within seconds, he could completely hide his limbs in it, the cloud hovering in the air after he'd tucked his feet inside.

"Here's a Spread Gun, Turboman!" Kaita called. Turboman shot it at the cloud of wool, but it seemed to just sink in without doing damage. He tried again, but it didn't get the response he wanted—the cloud poured out a fast but effective energy beam, sending him staggering back.

"He can store the energy," Mary realized. "We're just giving him more power if we shoot at him." What was more, the cloud was pulling apart, creating two clouds of equal size.

Turboman wasn't sure what to do—and the clouds were starting to multiply faster. "What about swords?" asked Ring.

"Let's give it a try. Wide Blade, slot-in!" Ring slashed at the nearest cloud, which disappeared.

"Well, he's not in that one!" she said cheerfully. "Start poking around, Turboman!"

"Better idea—I bet any solid object'll work. Ack!" One cloud had fired a lightning bolt into the air, sending down a rain of smaller bolts. "That's him!" Turboman realized. But even as he said it, the clouds began to move around, and Sheepman's cloud was lost among the others. "This'll have to do for now. Turbo Wheel!" Just as Turboman had suspected, the tires ripped through the clouds.

Many copies of Sheepman appeared from every cloud except one to call out, "Sheep Stampede!" A flock of angry Molokos burst out of the Sheepman-less cloud.

"I'll deal with this," Ring said, her pigtails already separating.

"Right! Area Steal, slot-in!" As soon as Kaita used the chip, Turboman shot behind the Moloko-producing cloud. "Long Sword, slot-in!" The red Navi slashed downward, eliciting a shout from the true Sheepman as he was forced out of hiding. His copies disappeared back into their clouds. Sheepman dove for one of them, but Ring's boomerangs tore through it before he could hide again. Kaita called, "Before he can send out more again! Air Shoes—"

"No dice, Kaita-kun," Turboman said, recalling Gutsman's reaction to their strategy. "I'll hit Ring, too."

"I'm fully prepared for that," Mary said with a grin. "Go ahead!"

Turboman stared at her. "What are you thinking?"

"You'll see!"

"All right!" Kaita called, "Air Shoes, slot-in!"

The bombs began appearing below Turboman. As they began to fall, he heard Mary call out, "Fuujin Racket, slot-in!" He looked down to see a broad fan appear on Ring's arm. She sent the bombs toward Sheepman in a massive swarm.

"Plug-out, Sheepman!" commanded Mr. Meme. Before the bombs could destroy Sheepman, he disappeared from the battlefield. "I'll leave FarmLand alone for now," he said. "But my next demonstration will create far more disorder..." His screen winked out, leaving Turboman, Ring, and their Operators alone.

"We did it!" cheered Ring as Turboman landed. Besides some disgruntled-looking animals, the farm looked pristine as ever. "Now, what was I going to do again..." Ring dropped her fist into her palm as she recalled, "A farm! I was going to get you a farm!" She took him by the hand and said, "Come on!"

* * *

So here's the deal:

There are about... nineteen chapters of this that have been beta-read. Coincidentally, they make a nice little arc on their own, and they're probably the best things that ever came out of my writing this. Because of that, I'm going ahead and posting them. However, there are thirty-six chapters total, and the remaining seventeen are neither beta-read nor resolve satisfyingly. I can't promise that I'll make time to harass my beta reader or rewrite the ending; I've moved on to a pair of new projects that have been sucking up all my time, and returning readers from What's on Your Mind will know that I've moved on from Mega Man in general. But if enough people want a full conclusion, I'm enough of a pushover still that I'll try and make it happen.

If you're new, stick around if you like good guys gone bad, bad guys with a little bit of good, and every shade in between.


	3. Crystal Clear

"Yumi, my dear."

"'Morning, Boss," Yumi greeted as the door swung shut behind her. "Is what's troubling you the same thing that's troubling me?"

"I'm afraid so," the Boss confirmed. On the monitor above his head, surveillance camera footage appeared. It showed a grainy picture of Black working away, surrounded by the base's servers and his monitor. The last item was casting sharp light on his angular face. "Just keeping an eye on them isn't enough any longer. I want him out of the base as often as possible. His friend, too—actually, his friend even more." He set his wineglass to the side of his chair, now drained of any liquid. "I hate to ask this of you. I'm sure you know how... erratic they've been."

"Don't worry," Yumi said. "I could do with fewer people around."

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Regal Burger hadn't had a day so exciting in years. Narcy knew—he'd worked there for longer than he cared to remember.

Around him, the back room was in panic. Grease was boiling over the side of the hideous fry cooker that had given him breakouts he wasn't allowed to hide with makeup. Some of the idiots who were his fellow workers had gotten the grease on their shoes, and they were screaming in pain. The central assembly line for the burgers was in flames, the microwaves and heating equipment used to defrost all those patties of mysterious source overheated. The manager was running around in a panic, or doing what he could to approach that considering his weight. Nobody would ever suspect him. Nobody noticed him making it to the safe on the back wall.

"Jewelman!" he called, beaming ear to ear for the first time in what seemed like forever. "Be a dear and help me liberate this cash!"

"Understood, Narcy-sama!" Jewelman made a pit stop in Narcy's PET before getting plugged into the safe's system. Through the PET screen, Narcy saw a pair of tired-looking guard Navis approach the white-armored intruder. "Gold Rush!" A sextet of golden bricks and sharp-tipped jewels rained from the sky at Jewelman's command, crushing the guards. In the real world, the safe swung open, and Narcy wasted little time plugging Jewelman into the inner system to retrieve the money stored inside.

"You cretin!" exclaimed someone from behind. Narcy turned to see the manager staggering closer. "Don't you dare move—"

"Excuse you? How about you not get in the way!" A spray of hot grease struck the manager in the side, forcing him to the ground with a high-pitched scream. Standing behind him was a short, skinny man, who grinned at Narcy. "I mean, a guy like you must have a masterpiece in the works, right?" He prodded the manager with one steel-toed boot, not getting much of a response before he stepped over to Narcy. "Black Hiroki," he introduced, a laser beam carrying his Navi out from the fryer. "I've ridded the cash registers of their security. It's all yours."

After all this time, Narcy wasn't one to look a gift horse—or partner—in the mouth. He plugged his Navi out, whipped a scarf out of his backpack, and tied it around his neck. "Much better," he said. He stepped gingerly over the manager, not wanting to dirty his shoes any more than they'd already been, before practically skipping to the front entrance. "Everything's going so right!" he exclaimed as he plugged Jewelman in, racking up even more money without any trouble. Narcy watched the number on his PET screen rise. "I'll be able to get a proper camera, and sound equipment, and maybe—maybe—a gorgeous new PET! I can't make my feature with outdated equipment..."

"You don't have that stuff already? But you're a filmmaker—" Narcy shot Black a look that could fell the largest ham. "Oh." The purple-haired director plugged Jewelman out and stalked out the door. He couldn't hear Black's boots tapping against the ground behind him, but when he looked back, the darkly-dressed man was keeping up.

"Not since the Net Saviors had their way, I haven't," Narcy said furiously as he got out his makeup bag. In a way, it felt good to rant to Black; he at least seemed to want to listen, unlike anyone else Narcy had tried to talk to. "I didn't even understand it. One minute, some... idiot was rejecting my art, the next minute I was in jail!"

Something akin to pity flashed into Black's eye. "You still don't remember," he realized.

"No, of course I don't!" Narcy fumed. "And they wouldn't tell me! They said it was too dangerous," he sneered, brushing on purple eyeshadow. "So they could keep me there for months asking me the stupidest things, and that Netto would..."

"Netto?"

Narcy clapped the eyeshadow compact shut as his hands balled into fists. He felt like he was going to strangle something, the memory made him so mad. "The other one with the skunk hair at least tried to treat me with a little respect. But that Netto... Every time the Net Police came to ask me questions about World Three or asteroids or whatever else they wanted to make up, he'd be there, him and one of his gaggle of friends. And I'd always hear them making fun of me, laughing at me in the next room. The adults would tell them to stop, but they enjoyed it too...

"When they released me, I had nothing. Nothing but the clothes on my back. And you know what that Netto said? 'At least we won't have to hear him complain anymore.' Him and his scientist father and his Net Savior paychecks! I bet he never had to work for a thing in his life! But I have. All this time, I've been creating the perfect Navi. Planning my revenge. I'll show the whole world that the Net Police are nothing but weak bullies! On film, exposed in living color! I'll show them all how wrong they were about me. My filmmaking career will rise from the ashes, and it begins with the Net Saviors' humiliation!"

"I'm sorry," Black said quietly. "And you've had to wait all this time... You must've been upset to hear that bombing got half your revenge for you."

"He deserved it," Narcy said, his attempt at flippancy helped by his focus on getting out his lipstick. "He drove me to this. To wasting all those years slaving away in some pigsty like that..." Only then, putting the last touches of lipstick on, did he think of something else. "How do you know me?"

"You're Narcy Hide, aren't you?" Black said with a nostalgic smile. "Some circles were close followers of your work. I couldn't not know you." He stretched his arms behind his head. "I think it was fate that brought us here today," he said. "You've walked out on your job, and I've just been kicked out of the house. Well, technically, she said 'you look like you could use a break' and 'maybe you should go to Regal Burger' and 'bring me back some fries', but she's got every reason to not want me around." Black grinned at Narcy. "I'm dangerous, you see. But before I return home and say there was a mishap, I thought I might pass on a good place for you to increase your budget..."

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"Is everyone here?" Mariko-sensei asked from the head of the small group outside the art museum.

"I can't believe this," sighed Kaita. "I thought we'd be seeing something cool..."

"It _is_ art, Kaita," Turboman reminded his Operator.

"It's going to be amazing!" Ring gushed, "Some of these pieces were worn by royalty! Real diamonds and sapphires and rubies..."

"But it's girly," whined Kaita.

"There are African tribal masks on display, too," Chisao said, skimming over a pamphlet. "So it's not all bad. Just most of it."

"Great," sighed Kaita. "What's the point of a field trip if it's mostly boring?"

"School is generally about education and not entertainment," Turboman said. "Otherwise, my idea to write off the monster truck rally as physics would've worked."

"Okay, everyone, we're going in! From now on, I want you all to use your inside voices," Mariko-sensei called.

"Right!" everyone replied. They trooped past a picture of a funny-looking man on one side of the hall, then a twisty and curly vase that Kaita doubted would hold flowers, and finally turned a corner. An old man was standing right next to the doorway, soberly waiting for his guests to file in. Kaita was unimpressed already, while Mary smiled and Ring was already fawning at the necklaces and bracelets hanging on the walls. Most of them were shiny, and most had big jewels in them somewhere. There was another person in the room, too; a person wearing a lot of pink and a floppy cap, and carrying a large bag. Kaita wasn't sure whether the pink-clad person was male or female. That wasn't helped when he got a look at the person's face and saw bright red lipstick, round sunglasses, and a decidedly masculine chin.

"May I have your attention, everyone?" the curator asked. Kaita looked up at what he was supposed to be paying attention to and saw a big, shiny necklace. "Now. The very first Horuptan jewelry was made from simple, natural materials, like shells or bones. As you can probably tell, this dates from a later time." He chuckled. Kaita looked over at the person in the corner. Upon further observation, he was probably a man somewhere under all those ruffles, though there was a feminine tilt to his hips. He twirled a strand of long, purple hair around his finger as he looked at the jewelry—and not at the little cards next to each display, Kaita noticed. He didn't care about history. All that mattered was the ancient and probably valuable jewelry—or were those the cases he was inspecting?

Kaita knew he was overthinking things, and turned back to the curator just in time for the group to move on to a new piece. "Now, this is from Namaste. Notice the focus on patterns and the precious jewels..." The girly man's arm moved, and Kaita's attention went straight from the boring talk to the pink-clad man. His face stayed pointed at the center of the case, but his eyes were roving up to the top of the case, across, down... Slowly, delicately, he slid something onto the case's bottom and sauntered to the next one.

"Kaita!" hissed Turboman in warning. He moved on along with the rest of the class.

"Another piece from Namaste—this is actually an anklet, not a bracelet. It dates back to around..." Kaita looked over to see that the man was already to the end of the row—he wasn't bothering with a few of the smaller displays. With a soft sigh, he turned back to the curator. He couldn't look that far behind him without getting into trouble.

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"Hm."

A few blocks away, Black was contemplating the possibilities the rest of the day afforded him. Yumi had tried sending him to another burger place, and he'd responded by packing up his laptop and telling her that he'd just work on the Devil outdoors if she was so bothered. He'd followed that up by wondering why she was on his case and not Atsuki's, anyway—he'd thought they were friends. She'd looked a little remorseful after he'd said that, which was good; he missed hanging out with her. More seriously, this run-around was a horrible, annoying distraction. He was already working out a massive-scale prank instead of actually doing anything meaningful, and seeing that Narcy was going to keep Kaita and his girlfriend busy was just further incentive. Maybe this prank would make it through the entire city, right up to the IPC complex at its heart...

"That's right," Black realized. The Net Saviors would come running. He wanted to deal with them on his own terms, not encounter them on something throwaway, like this. "Hm." As he flipped his laptop open, he thought through his current resources; what was ready, what wouldn't hurt to get set in motion a month or two early...

"Computer!" It recognized his voice and unlocked. " _Hit it!_ " That caught the attention of half the street, as did the loud music that started blasting from the speakers. Black didn't care. He plugged Punk into the laptop and took a seat on a raised planter. "Pop quiz! It's one-thirty on a Monday. Where is our pal Stinger now?"

"Going from the Ministry of Science to take a look at Battlechips. He'll be out there for another fifteen minutes," Punk replied.

"Correct! And while you're on your way to _intercept_ ," he said, prompting Punk to access the link to Internet City, "here's the lightning round for the grand prize! Why Stinger?"

"Intern's Navi," Punk instantly recalled.

"And why do you think I like Ministry interns?"

This one took a second of thought. "Because the ones we looked at tended to have all the security privileges of full-blown junior scientists with none of the experience to detect you."

Black grinned. "I'll make you an infiltration Navi yet. Congratulations, you're going on a cruise!"

"They sound overrated," Punk said. Ahead of him was a generic Navi that had been recolored green.

"Well, fine," said Black, faking miffed. "If you're gonna be that way, just go intercept our target."

Punk's eyes narrowed in amusement. "That suits me better." Punk fell into step behind Stinger, waiting for the other Navi to turn onto a quieter street. As Stinger almost always did, he made the turn a minute later. A third of the way in, Punk's cable arm tied him down.

"Connect me," Black ordered as Stinger began to shout. Punk placed his hand over Stinger's Navi symbol; moments later, Black had silenced him. "Hello, Stinger," he said mockingly as he started his work in earnest, head bobbing to the instrumental. "You can call me Black. We have a few fun months ahead of us. I hope we can be pals." Stinger couldn't answer. His mind had been almost entirely shut down as Black added new, overriding layers of code. "The song isn't even over yet!" he realized as he double-checked his work. "Today is the best day ever!"

"I'm guessing my part is over," Punk said.

"Afraid so," confirmed Black. Punk returned to his PET. In the meantime, his Operator noticed, "Stinger, if you don't hurry you'll be late! I can do this last part on the fly, so let's march on back to the Ministry. We're going to send the Net Saviors on a little ride." He snickered as he thought of the perfect place. "I hope they don't mind the great outdoors..."

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What seemed like an eternity later, Mariko-sensei announced, "That's all the time we have for today! Class is dismissed, so unless you have any questions, you can go ahead and leave!"

"Mariko-sensei, can we look at the gift shop instead?" Kaita asked.

"I don't see why not," she said with a smile. "Go ahead."

"Come on, Mary-chan," he said, taking her hand and tugging her toward the gift shop.

"Um... Kaita-kun?" The gift shop was large enough that they wouldn't be overheard in the corner, so Kaita made a beeline for it. "I don't really think I want anything—"

"We need to wait," he explained. "For him."

"Who?" Mary asked.

"The guy! The girly guy who was in the room with us!"

Mary sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised, should I?"

"I guess he is a guy," Ring said. "One emerald and they zone out."

"I'm serious," Kaita said. "He was putting stuff on the cases, he didn't even care about the history stuff!"

Now, Mary was listening. "Is he still inside?" she asked, looking out the window into the hallway. "Shouldn't we get someone?"

"What if they don't believe—that's him!" The girly man was walking out with more hip-wiggling than Kaita felt was necessary. His bag was much fuller-looking. "Come on!" They tailed him out the door. Seconds later, they were forced to clap their hands over their ears as alarms burst out inside the museum. Kaita looked up to see the man jump into a beat-up old Nissan and slam the door.

"We can't follow him now!" Mary said.

"Sure we can. We just need to borrow something."

Mary followed Kaita's glance to the row of cars parked outside the museum. Before long, she'd put two and two together. "Kaita-kun, no! That's stealing!"

"We'll put it back!" Mary wasn't biting. He tried, "If we just hop out with it now and follow him, we can get the jewelry back safe and sound. And the car'll be back here before the day's even over."

"Hey, you're right!" Ring said. "It's for a good cause, innit, Mary-chan?"

Mary looked up at Narcy's car peeling out and bit her lip. "I guess... I really don't like this..."

"It'll just be for a little bit," Kaita reminded her. He scanned the cars in the lot, looking for one with a weak security system. "That one! The alarm's on the opposite end of the lock system, but it isn't too bad otherwise," he explained.

"So Ring'll disable it while Turboman unlocks the car." Hesitantly, Mary nodded. "If you're sure we'll give it right back."

It went smoothly, as Kaita had hoped. While Mary shut the door behind her on the passenger side, Kaita grabbed a pair of wire strippers from his backpack and ducked under the dashboard.

He'd barely been at it a minute before Mary said, "Um... Kaita...?"

When he emerged from the small space, he saw a stern-looking man glaring in at him. "We're going after a jewelry thief," he explained, "and we need your car." The man's expression didn't change. "Can I borrow your keys?"

"What kind of a story is that?" asked the man indignantly.

"T-the truth," Mary said. More resolutely, she continued, "Some of those pieces are hundreds of years old. Please, sir..."

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to call a taxi," the man said angrily. "I'm not letting you take this car anywhere!"

Kaita's eyebrows raised as he realized, "I don't think you understand. I don't actually need your keys. I was just being polite." Before the man could put two and two together, Kaita said, "Turboman, hit it!" The man didn't get another word in before they sped away in the direction the girly man had gone. "Thank goodness for speed limits," Kaita said.

"Really..." Their newest foe was just two cars ahead. Mary wondered, "Say, Kaita... Do you think he's with Nova? I'm not sure."

"Me, either. It's weird how Mr. Meme had nothing to do with them yesterday, and now this... Where have they gone? Why all these people who aren't the right ones?"

Mary's hand moved to trace the edge of the round pendant over her chest. "Who knows..." The light changed. Kaita looked at the girly man's worn car, wondering what the man wanted. Money was obvious, but money for what? "Maybe they feel like I do. Something's coming..."

"And whatever it is, it's gonna change everything," Kaita finished for her. "That's how I feel, too. Maybe they think this is their last chance." Up ahead, Narcy's car turned off. "Turboman!"

"Saw it!" Turboman followed the other car onto a quieter road. "You can't run from me! I'm the king of the road!" he proclaimed, speeding up.

"Don't we want to not look suspicious?" Mary asked. The window of the beat-up Nissan was rolling down. The girly man stuck his arm out the window, aiming for the car. There was a moment's silence as the man's arm retreated; then, their car suddenly swerved. "Ring-chan, help him out!"

"Leave it to Ring!" she proclaimed before Mary plugged her into the dashboard. Kaita took one last look at the road and the car ahead before monitoring the fight on his own PET. In the dashboard's system, a Navi with heeled boots and a garish jewel ponytail was flying to the ground after receiving a tackle from Turboman. An assortment of oversized jewels was fading into pixels, having failed to hit their mark.

"Ring, grab the wheel!" gasped Mary. Kaita looked up and almost wished he hadn't—there was a turn coming up ahead, and Turboman was distracted.

Kaita selected a chip in case the enemy Navi repeated his attack. "Samurai Sword!"

As the bone-white sword appeared on Turboman's arm, the jeweled Navi grinned. "Diamond Dust!" He waved a hand in the air, causing razor-sharp shards to appear. They moved incredibly quickly, and even Turboman couldn't evade them all with his speed. Following them was a slower-moving cloud of white, sparkling powder.

"I've got a bad feeling about that white stuff," he told Turboman. "Try not to let it touch you!"

The enemy Navi disappeared in an Area Steal. "Excuse me, little boy, but that isn't just 'white stuff'," the Navi said, reappearing behind Turboman and shoving him into the cloud. "All my attacks are valuable, but that's my favorite," he confessed as Turboman struggled to lift his feet. "Narcy-sama just _hates_ people who try to run away from him!" He looked over at Ring manning the wheel. "While I hate people who try to interrupt me," he said, summoning another six oversized treasures. "Gold Rush!"

"Would you pipe down?" Ring asked, hurling her boomerangs at him, making a slight tweak to the wheel so they didn't crash into an oncoming tree, and finally managing to slide under a falling gold bar. "I am _trying_ to drive here! You'll pick up damage in the crash too, mate!"

"Narcy-sama knows my code inside and out," the enemy said, laying a hand on his white-armored chest. "As long as his cause remains, there will always be Jewelman to carry out his vision."

The voice of Jewelman's Operator was about as flamboyant as he looked. "Battlechip: Ice Wave! Slot-in!" Jewelman whipped his arm out, summoning a flurry of oversized snowflakes to freeze the already-immobile Turboman further and pin down Ring's left arm and foot. She gritted her teeth as she tried to steer and keep an eye out for her opponent.

"Jewel Sabre!" Two clear, pink swords appeared on either side of Jewelman with a wave of his hand. He snatched them out of the air and charged at Ring.

"Flame Sword, slot-in!" Ring swept the fiery blade at Jewelman, whose rush attack turned into a roll to avoid it. He put the two blades in a cross shape and began to sweep outwards, but was halted by Ring's sword.

"Thanks, that's much better," she said, allowing the heat pouring off her sword to melt the ice coating her arm. "Mary-chan, if you would care to even the odds?"

"Here's an Aqua Sword, Ring!" called Mary. The Jewel Sabres were beginning to get visibly hot. Jewelman knew what was coming; he withdrew his blades before Ring could slash sideways with her new Aqua Sword and turn them brittle. However, Kaita had a surprise for him. Turboman had used his tires' heat to defrost himself, and the odd quasi-paralysis had worn off. With the help of an Aqua Blade, he chopped one of Jewelman's swords in half, letting the point sail away to vanish in mid-air while the hilt was deleted from Jewelman's hand. The other sabre slashed sideways toward Ring, who parried with her Aqua Sword and forced the blade downward.

Kaita looked up for a second to report, "Guys, we're turning!" Turboman ran for the wheel while Ring stomped down on the Jewel Sabre, forcing it out of its owner's hand. She cut down toward Jewelman's back, but the fabulous Navi wasn't through yet; he took the hit while sending out another round of Diamond Dust, hitting both of his opponents hard. However, the cut down his back was leaking data, and his retreat was more staggering than graceful. Turboman was able to stabilize the car before it could go flying off the road, while a scream of rage told them all what Narcy thought of the turn the battle had taken.

"Finish this off, Ring!" Mary said. "Mega Cannon, slot-in!"

"I'll remember this!" yelled Jewelman. "Gold Rush!" As the treasure plummeted down, Jewelman logged out. Kaita slammed in a Dream Aura as the two immobilized Navis vanished under a pile of gold and jewels...

" _How could you?!"_ came the yell from up ahead. Narcy ran straight over a curb and deep into some bushes in his distraction. Kaita had a feeling the villain's car wasn't going anywhere - it looked like there would be some serious damage to the important parts on its underbody. Wisely, Narcy wasn't even bothering to try moving his car. "You little _brats_!" he shrieked, pulling himself out from the wreck. "I'll deal with you later!" A fistful of jewelry in his hand, he ran for it as Kaita and Mary pulled up.

Kaita plugged Turboman out and sprang out of the car, Mary following him. Narcy's bag was still inside, and Mary looked inside to see most of the jewelry. She took it by the handles. "Why didn't he—oh!" Her attempt at picking it up came to a quick end. "It's heavy!"

"I'd think so, Mary-chan," Ring said. "Even if gold's a light metal, it's still metal!" Kaita hauled it out of Narcy's car and began transferring it to his commandeered car, while Mary walked over to pick up a bracelet Narcy had left on the ground.

"I just wish we could've gotten them all back," she said.

"Oof!" said Kaita as he put the bag in the back seat. "Well, at least we got a lot of them back!"

"Uh, guys...?" came Turboman's voice from the PET. "Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"

In the chase, Kaita hadn't been paying too much attention to the monitors and other displays lining the roads. Now, he saw that they were all playing one endlessly repeating video. "Is that...?" he wondered, not believing what he was seeing.

"The Llama Song," Mary confirmed.


	4. Black Humor

"This is really getting annoying," Kaita said. At Mary's insistence, they had returned the car to the art museum and dropped off the jewelry while they were there. Despite the lost pieces, the curator had been grateful. But they couldn't stay long; the entire ride had been nothing but llamas and some very grouchy-looking people on the sidewalks.

"Will this day ever end?" sighed Mary. The billboard above her head was silently playing the video, while the cars driving past all had the song playing on their speakers. An electronics store was displaying it on all of their televisions, and even the vending machine in front of the store had it playing on the display and coming out of the rudimentary sound player in blips and bloops.

"The better question to ask is where whoever did this is hiding," Turboman said.

"Hmm..." Ring said, "If I'd done this, I would want to find the best place to watch all this and laugh."

"I'd just want someplace quiet..." her Operator said.

"I think it depends," Kaita said, after some thought. "On whether they want some kind of reward or if they just want to attract someone's attention."

"Maybe it doesn't matter where the person who did this is hiding," Mary said. "Perhaps our Navis can remove the program themselves."

"Hey, you're right," Kaita said. "But then again, why hasn't anyone tried yet?"

"It's probably just a tough one," was Turboman's theory. "But with me and Ring on it, we'll power through like it's nothing!"

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Black had started out wanting neither fortune nor fame, but as he surveyed his work in the foyer of IPC Tower (successfully taken in the name of the llama empire), he found himself wondering what to do next. "I'm getting tired of llamas," he said as he stepped outside. The entire street was awash in red and low-quality jpegs, as was what he could see of the street around the corner. "Maybe I shouldn't have sent the Net Saviors away after all."

"Or at least not so far away," Punk said. "They probably won't be back for a coupla days."

"Yeah. Should've been something a few minutes out of town, not a few hours. Oh, well." He strolled down the road, observing the growing frustration on the store managers' faces. "Hey, you know what?"

"Okay, I'll shoot. What?" obliged Punk.

"I've never actually robbed a place before," Black realized, his pace quickening with newfound purpose. "I've stolen data, I've deleted it, I've done everything _except_ actually physically rob someplace. And now everyone in town's distracted, and the Net Saviors are gone! It's the perfect chance!"

Punk let that sink in for a moment. "Y'know, I don't think I've ever heard that one before," he said. "Plenty of people doin' it as a harmless prank, but never just to tick boxes."

"That's because I'm not most people," Black said. "And I don't get out too often - ooh, is that a chocolate shop? That's new... But there's a candy store two streets away... oh, this is hard!"

"You can always just stop here first an' then go to the candy store," Punk pointed out. "Shit, man."

"I told you! Shoplifting newbie! But since you seem to know more about it, you can advise me on my form." The store owner was nowhere in sight. Mindful of the bell on the door despite the loud music playing, Black inched it open.

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"Hmm..." Ring patted the sides of the red data cube with her mittens while her rings sat on top. She gave the diagnosis, "Well, this is weird."

"Maybe we should try attacking it," Mary said. "Long Sword, slot-in!" Ring sliced down on the cube, producing a faint echo of the song playing out the TV's speakers but no contact. She tried cutting from the side, only to produce the same effect.

"I appreciate the effort, but I'm telling you kids, nothing works," the store owner said. "My Navi's tried shooting it, but it does the same thing."

"It keeps making that sound," Kaita noticed.

"That's it!" Mary realized. "Sound! Battlechip: Silence! Slot-in!" A silver Rarapapa virus appeared in front of Ring. Everyone sighed in relief as the llama music was cut off. "Try cutting it now!"

"Here goes!" The sword cut straight through. Throughout the store, llama pictures were replaced by normal displays. "Awesome! So all we have to do is go around and keep using Silence, right?"

"In theory, yes... But there's still the time-out to worry about."

"Right! You have to let the Battlechip sit and recharge..." Ring sighed. "Well, that puts a damper on things."

"How many Silence chips do you have?" asked Kaita.

"Other than that one, only one more on me..." Mary lamented, "Silence isn't a very common chip, either. Our chances of running into anyone else with it are slim..."

"Hey, maybe we don't need to. What about the arcade?" Turboman asked. "There's a recharging machine inside. We use the last chip to get the arcade back up and running..."

"...then restore the Silence chips!" Mary finished.

"And then, we can each take one and go around fixing the other networks," Kaita added. "We can each take half of the city, and get the job done faster."

"Sounds like a plan," Ring said. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"Wait," Mary said. "What if one of us runs into whoever's behind this?"

"Personally, I don't think that'll happen," Ring said. "It's a big city, and we've been out here for a long while without seeing anybody odd." As the two Operators started walking, Ring theorized, "I think the culprit's just hanging around his house having a snack or something. Leaving us free to fix his mess!"

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With the arcade and its recharging capabilities at his disposal and a Silence chip in his pocket, Kaita was left with only the final step: going around and cutting down all the llama-making cubes in the buildings' networks. The enormity of his task was starting to sink in. "Where should we start?" wondered Kaita, walking down the street.

"We could always go up and down each street, like Mary's doing," Turboman said.

"But doing it like that doesn't matter, does it? I'll still have to go back to the arcade every time to recharge my chip, and you can always keep track of which places we've done already," Kaita pointed out. "Maybe we should just do random ones at first. Like—hey, the candy store!" In the window were lollipops and a large display of gumballs. Flashing on the central monitor were an orange and a rake. "Let's try in there!"

"You're just saying that because you're hoping for freebies," Turboman pointed out dryly.

"So? I'm still doing a good deed," Kaita said, throwing the door open. Inside was a vast assortment of jelly beans lined up on the left wall, stands of packaged sweets in the center... and there, munching on a chocolate-covered pretzel like nothing was happening, was a man so familiar that seeing him after so long nearly bowled Kaita over.

He turned, regarding Kaita with his cool brown eye. Then, an almost predatory smile spread across his face. "Kiddo," Black said, crossing his arms. "Being a hero as usual, I see?"

It was only after his brain caught up to the fact that he'd finally found a Nova member—and the one he'd wanted to find—that Kaita realized he was supposed to reply. "H-hi," he stammered, cautiously narrowing the gap between him and Black.

"That's all you're going to say?" wondered Black, genuinely amused. He lifted his left arm; his PET arm, Kaita realized. "I thought you came to stop me," he said as he plugged Punk into the display at his side.

"Sort of," Kaita replied. He took a deep breath—they'd practiced for this, and he wasn't going to let Turboman get hurt so badly again—before responding to the unspoken challenge, sending his Navi into a display closer to the door.

"Don't hesitate," Black said with a grin. "Hasn't anyone told you that'll get you nowhere?"

"You told me," Kaita recalled, surveying the battlefield. There were a number of mid-sized platforms - Turboman was on one, Punk a few platforms away—with an abyss below. "And I didn't forget it."

"I did, didn't I?" Black drew out a Battlechip. "If you didn't forget, then show me." He slammed it in almost as Kaita whipped out a Super Vulcan to counter. Turboman sped away from Punk's Senshahou blast, firing back a steady stream of lighter but more numerous bullets. Punk simply blocked with one of his shoulder plates.

"Double-Go-Round!" Soon, both spiky discs were flying at Turboman. The bright red Navi built up speed while the projectiles shot toward him, then leapt. The attack passed under him while he was in the air, and he landed as they began to curve around. He skidded to a halt in a low crouch as they passed overhead.

"Long Sword!" Turboman raised the blue-white sword just in time to block Punk's Neo Variable. But there was no way the weaker Long Sword would hold forever; it was already starting to crack. Before that could happen, Punk disappeared in an Area Steal—and Kaita's Cannon shot through empty air. Turboman didn't straighten completely, waiting to dodge Punk's attack. He rolled away from the Powarudo virus coming in from overhead—straight into Punk's waiting cable arm. He tried to detach the wheels on his shoulders, but Punk hurled him up over his head and to the ground. Turboman struggled to get free from the black cable that was swinging him up by the legs for another hit.

Kaita wasn't about to sit and watch his Navi get battered into submission. "Mega Cannon, slot-in!" As Turboman went flying over Punk's head, the red cannon began to form on his arm. The bright red Navi wasted no time firing. Punk stumbled backward as Turboman fell to the ground, freed from the other Navi's dangerous cable. As he flipped to his feet, Kaita yelled, "Now, Fumikomizan!"

"Fumikomi Cross!" countered Black. As he zipped across the field, Turboman had to adjust his sword angle as Punk came flying to meet him with two swords. "So, you really did listen," Black said as Punk and Turboman struggled to come out on top.

Kaita added a Wide Blade to help Turboman out before replying, "How could I not? You knew what you were talking about, and I was struggling."

Black smirked, but his tone of voice was more teasing. "How could you trust me? I might have been lying. Maybe your skill can't be improved by all the advice in the world." Turboman used his second sword to aim a slash at Punk's knees, which was promptly blocked by one of Punk's swords. The car-like Navi tried sliding his sword down toward Punk's chest, but his opponent hurled both swords away with a yell before springing toward him.

"I don't believe that for a second," Kaita said. "You don't let just anyone see you for real." As if to back him up, Turboman smoothly blocked Punk's attack with his swords before raising his boot to deliver a kick to his opponent's chest.

"You're right!" Punk stepped back before one of his swords changed into a Mark Cannon. At such a close range, Turboman couldn't do much more than raise the Wide Blade to deflect as much of the energy bullet as he could. "It makes me wonder—no, you're just a kid." Amused, Black continued, "But I'll ask anyway. What's your big plan?"

"I don't really have one," Kaita said. "That's part of why I wanted to see you... I feel like something's going to happen."

"Well, duh, something's going to happen," Black said. "Nova's plan is going to happen! Oh, and keep your eyes on the Netbattle." Kaita looked down to see Turboman barely evade a Double-Go-Round attack and slotted in an Area Steal, spiriting Turboman off to a farther platform. "So. Exactly how did you expect to get me to talk?"

"By surprising you," Kaita said. "Cannon, triple slot-in!" Underneath the veneer, Kaita was silently willing it to work; they'd thought they had it against Knightman, and they'd been so wrong...

But one cannon appeared on Turboman's arm, and then another. He raised his arms up as they glowed white, then brought them down as one big, solid gun pointed straight at Punk.

Before the blinding flash of light could reach the rust-red Navi, his figure morphed into the letters 'PLUGOUT' and disappeared from sight. "Okay. You've surprised me," Black said, ignoring the frustrated noise that came from his PET. He took a seat on the ground and pulled a laptop out from his thin backpack. "You've got three minutes until all the llamas are gone," he told Kaita. The song was cut off mid-sentence, leaving only the faint sounds of it playing outside. "Talk."

Kaita looked down at his PET, then up at Black. "Why'd you stop?"

"I told you. You surprised me." Black looked up at Kaita. "Besides, I was getting sick of the whole pointless llama thing, too. Now, either we're going to actually have some kind of conversation, or this whole thing will be a waste of our time."

"Right," Kaita said. "Well... What should I do?"

"I'm not going to tell you. I am a Nova member, after all."

"But should I be looking for you guys, or just be ready for you guys, or..." Black burst into laughter, loud and childish. "I'm serious!"

Obligingly, Black attempted to contain himself. It was obviously an uphill struggle, and Kaita felt himself growing increasingly annoyed. "Sorry," he said brightly. "Haven't laughed that much in a long time." Once the mirth had faded into a smile, he said, "It's just, you're putting way too much thought into this."

Kaita protested, "But I don't feel like I'm putting enough thought into it! I mean, you have your plans, and then there're other guys running around, who knows what their deal is, but I have to keep track of them, too—"

"Which isn't your job."

"It isn't?"

"It's the Net Saviors'. Enzan, Meiru-chan. Remember them? The government pays them to take on the world's problems. As you probably realize—otherwise, you'd ask them this stuff." Black's fingers flew across the keyboard for a few seconds. Then, he said, "You're a kid, Kaita. You don't have to worry about the big picture yet—there are people who will do that for you. Just relax and take 'em as they come. Worked for me."

Kaita quickly deduced what this meant, but only managed, "Huh?"

"You're no soldier, Kaita. So don't act like one. Look around! Have fun! You handle things in your own way, and you'll discover secrets the Net Saviors never could." Black closed the laptop and got to his feet. He started walking out, then stopped and looked down into Kaita's face. The boy blinked up at him; why was his face so blank all of a sudden? But then the moment passed, and Black was striding out the door. "Ahhh! Blessed silence!" Kaita ran to catch up and found everything returned to normal. People were looking around in confusion. "Well, that's that settled. Shouldn't you be finding your girlfriend?"

"I told you, she isn't my girlfriend! She's just a friend!"

Waving his hand around, Black said, "Yeah, yeah, sure. See you around!"

"I mean it!" Kaita called to Black's retreating figure. "That was interesting," he said to Turboman.

"I like this having fun idea a lot more than the constant worrying, I've gotta admit," the Navi said.

"Honestly? I do, too," Kaita agreed. "But there's still that feeling..."

"Which we'll deal with when it's time," Turboman said. "Now, let's go find Mary!"

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"Nothing?" Rockman asked himself, scanning through the usage data the Ministry had collected one last time. "I can't believe it." It had been a day now since the llamas had taken over Densan, and nobody was any closer to finding out who had set them on the city and why.

"Any hints, Rockman?" Hikari-hakase asked, his image appearing in front of his Navi.

"No harm was done by the programs," Rockman said, still a bit baffled by the turn that afternoon had taken. "And they've disappeared without a trace. All of this looks like it was just a harmless prank."

"How strange," Hikari-hakase mused. "The programming reminds me of Nova's hacker, but surely he would have wanted to gain _something_ by doing this…"

"I know. It seems too childish for him," Rockman noticed.

Hikari-hakase seemed to perk up at the observation. "Maybe this is his form of stress relief?" he suggested jokingly.

"Maybe…" Rockman could only shrug. "I guess I'll go let Meijin know that we've done all we can."

As he exited Yuuichirou's computer for the main Ministry network, Rockman was nearly bowled over by an enthusiastic tackle. It could only be one Navi. "Roll-chan!" he greeted, returning the hug.

"Rockman! It's so good to see you!" enthused Roll, squeezing tighter before releasing her boyfriend.

"What brings you here, Roll-chan?" asked Rockman.

"Oh, I'm on my way to bring that report to Meijin... for all the good it is," Roll said crossly. "But I wanted you to look at a couple of candidates, too!"

Rockman sheepishly laughed as a group of photographs appeared in front of Roll. "Maybe Meiru-chan just doesn't want to go to the prom."

Roll sighed, "I know... But she's over halfway done with high school, and she's never had a boyfriend or been to a dance at all! And I know she'd love picking out a new dress if she just had the chance to go..." Rockman put an arm around her shoulders as another sad sigh escaped Roll's lips. "I'm just worried about her," the Navi said.

"You shouldn't be," Rockman advised. "Meiru-chan's a pretty strong person. I'm sure either way, she'll be fine."

"I just wish she had more friends at school... but you're right. Thanks, Rockman," Roll said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. Rockman couldn't help but blush a little. "Hey, are we headed in the same direction?" she asked, slipping her arm around Rockman's waist.

"Yeah, actually," Rockman said, looking around. There was nobody else in sight. "I'm sure he won't mind if we take our time, it's not like there's much to report."

"And it'll be nice to spend some time together for once!"

"Even if it is just this boring hallway," Rockman laughed. "It's a pretty lame date spot, isn't it?"

"It's better than nothing." Roll sighed, "We've been so busy, and there's always sticks-in-the-mud around like—"

"Am I interrupting something?" a deep voice boomed from across the corridor, prompting Rockman and Roll to quickly detangle themselves.

"I shouldn't have said it," Roll muttered.

"No, of course not, Gateman!" Rockman said, bright red. "We were just heading over to see you and Meijin, actually!"

"Well, then, I believe forward progress is in order," Gateman said sternly.

"We were progressing," Roll said innocently as the three started walking. Rockman, not being nearly as good at erasing the guilt from his voice, opted to stay silent. "And, anyway, have you made any progress on finding out who reported that missing PET?"

"It's still early in the investigation," Gateman said coolly. "I am sure we will eventually find the perpetrator." Rockman sighed; if that prankster was anything like the llama prankster, they had another long, unsatisfying investigation ahead of them.


	5. Department Store Nightmare!

"Boss needs you."

With his thick legs up on the table, Atsuki didn't look inclined to spring to his feet. "Really? What for?"

Yumi crossed her arms. "You'll find out when he tells you."

"Oh, yes. Like Black and his llamas?" Atsuki sat up in his chair, his legs going back under the desk. "Exactly how much of his time do you plan to waste on these foolish larks?"

"It's what the Boss wants."

"You are driving him away from what he was hired to do," Atsuki said impatiently. "He's becoming too open, too careless. A few days of being left alone will allow him to focus again."

"Really? And what does Black say about that, huh?"

With a grace that was eerie on a man of his size, Atsuki soundlessly rose to his feet. "He doesn't have to say a word. I know what's good for him and what's not."

Yumi's eyes narrowed in disgust. "I thought he was in charge."

Atsuki padded to her side, regarding her with strangely bright brown eyes. "He may be in charge," he said, backing her against the wall, "but he'll listen to every word I say. Including how I think he should be treating certain peers."

"Back off," growled Yumi. "There's nothing stopping me from telling the Boss all about this."

"Just like there's nothing stopping you from having a little... accident. So I'd stick to fetching your Boss's coffee, _girl_." Atsuki swiftly returned to his desk, leaving Yumi backed against the wall in stunned silence.

She steadied herself on her feet again and started walking out, shoulders squared. "You know, I remember when Black first came to the base," she said after she'd reached the doorway. "He always had this blank look on his face. He never talked to anyone. It took months before the rest of the world could reach him. Personally, I prefer him distracted." She'd barely gotten two steps out of Atsuki's office before she added, "Oh, and it's not a 'lark' in your case. It's an order. So if you want to take it up with someone, take it up with the Boss."

Atsuki watched with complete unconcern as she stormed away.

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"Wow! That's a really poofy dress!"

Mary giggled at her friend's compliment. "Thank you, Kaita-kun!" She turned to see Kaita, dressed in his usual jumpsuit. "Um, are you sure you're okay with this...?"

"Sure I'm sure!" Kaita said cheerfully. "I mean, Akihara Tower has tons of cool stuff!"

"See? Told you it'd be fine!" Ring excitedly planned, "We can go to the arcade once Mum's done introducing you to whoever. And I'll totally kick your butt at anything and everything, Turboman!"

"You? Beat the king of the freeway? I don't think so," Turboman said confidently. "Why don't we get this show on the road, so I can show you a thing or two?"

"Sure thing! Except we can't right now," Ring said apologetically.

"Mum's probably going to want me here for another few minutes, while people are still coming in. After that, it gets... not to be rude, but..." Mary looked around, then whispered, "...a little boring."

Ring assured them, "We'll be able to slip off just fine then!"

"Then why'd you tell us to meet you here now?" complained Turboman.

"Because this is the last five minutes, when nearly everyone's here except the one person who insists on being fashionably late. There's one at every showcase. Anyway, this is the part where we need the company the most, " Ring explained. "So go on. Entertain us!"

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The front of Akihara Tower was plain in decoration but filled with a colorful array of people. All sorts of people were standing on the tan tiles, from couples to scene kids to bargain hunters to a man dressed in a trenchcoat and hat, which helped to hide goggles and a black jumpsuit that completely covered his head and extremities. He casually strode to the center of the area, putting his hands in his pockets as he regarded the traffic and shoppers who passed without a care.

Behind the mask, Atsuki smirked before taking a deep breath.

" _Long live Nova!_ " He laughed long and hard as chaos erupted around him. The trenchcoat and hat were burned off by the flames that came to life around him. Everyone who still could was running as fast and as far as they could, but he didn't bother giving chase. He simply stood and laughed at all the pain and confusion around him, the blaze rolling off his jumpsuit and into the skies.

 _"Shall I... lock down the building?"_ Burnerman asked through his Operator's implanted communicator.

"Of course," Atsuki said. The flames intensified behind him. If the people inside Akihara Tower hadn't been trapped before, they certainly would be now; Burnerman would keep the flames pouring down in front of the doors for as long as it took. He looked around at the few planters of bland bushes, now crumbling to cinders under the power of the heat. He would be giving more people than just the unfortunates in Akihara Tower a lesson in the effectiveness of fire, one he couldn't wait to begin teaching.

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Kaita had barely heard the first syllable of 'Nova' before he shot to the window. Mary could faintly hear the familiar voice—and especially the tone, seemingly conversational but with an odd edge—of Atsuki explaining, "All right, everyone, listen up! I'm afraid Akihara Tower doesn't have much time left in its life, and there's nothing all you folks here in the street can do to stop that unless you agree to a couple things first."

Mary tried to follow Kaita to the window, but her mother came running before she could get far. "Mary, dear! Where are you going at a time like this?"

"That man down there's with Nova," Mary said. "Kaita-kun and I are going to stop him."

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" asked Angeline, her fingers toying with the pendant that hung over her chest.

"We've dealt with Nova before, Mum," Mary explained. "We'll be fine."

After a moment, Angeline smiled. "Then go on," she said, kissing her daughter's forehead. "Get them!"

Mary went to join Kaita at the window. Down below, Atsuki was continuing his speech. "Here's the deal: I've got four bombs hidden inside Akihara Tower. In fifteen minutes, unless I receive two million zenny, those bombs are going to explode. From there, my Navi and I will waste no time setting as many other fires as we can, until Akihara Tower is certain to collapse." Smugly, he added, "Any questions?"

Mary and Kaita didn't even have to agree to split up; they just looked at each other before hurrying in opposite directions. "Mary-chan, the bombs don't seem to be giving off any signals," Ring said. "Looks like this is another one where we'll have to just comb the whole tower..."

"Not exactly." Mary explained, "If I were Atsuki, I would be sure to plant a bomb on one of the lower floors, maybe the second or third. Plant a bomb in a higher spot, and you're only affecting a couple of levels..."

"But on a lower story, you'll bring the whole tower down if you're not careful!" After a moment's thought, Ring added, "...which might be the entire point."

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On the topmost level of Net Police Headquarters, a balding, heavyset man gritted his teeth at the sight of smoke wafting up from downtown. "Manabe-kun! Get me the Net Saviors on the line, immediately!"

"Understood, Commissioner Kifune." Manabe wasted no time placing the call. Moments later, images of Enzan in his office at IPC and Meiru's room popped up.

"I can see it from here, Commissioner," Enzan reported. "I'll be there right away."

"I've still got the smoke mask from my last fire-related mission," Meiru said, appearing in the camera's view with mask in hand.

"Same here," Enzan said.

"Good. Bring those along; both of you, meet with Superintendent Manabe in this area," Kifune said, forwarding an address to their PETs. "She'll have further details for you."

"Roger!" Both windows winked out.

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The corner of the department store Mary had chosen as one of the most likely hiding spots had a bin of teddy bears in the furthest corner. Mary wasted no time sifting through the bin, leaning over to plunge her arms in deep. "Maybe this isn't the right corner, Mary-chan," Ring said from her PET. "I mean, this floor's got four of 'em, and time's starting to run out."

Mary wasn't deterred from pulling out some of the stuffed toys to make the search easier. "I'm nearly certain it's here. It would make the most sense to—" Her hand brushed something hard, and she dug deeper to grab it. Upon pulling it to the surface, she found it was a black box with a port on one side and a decreasing number displayed on the top. "Eureka."

"Well, let's not just stare at it! Plug me in!"

"Right!" When Ring touched down inside the bomb's small system, Mary saw a quartet of Lava Dragons guarding a central control panel - undoubtedly the defuser. "Fire-element viruses..."

"Coupled with the plan itself... No surprises at all from that creep!" Ring said.

"Battlechip: Aqua Cross! Slot-in!" Ring sent her shot straight into the frontmost Lava Dragon's throat as it prepared to fire, hitting the virus behind it as well. While the targeted Lava Dragon was deleted, its fellow was still standing. Ring had to jump to the side of one Lava Dragon's flamethrower before another swooped toward her. "Aqua Sword, slot-in!" Ring cleaved the charging virus's neck in two, instantly deleting it. Then, she ran toward the other two.

"Ring Boomerang!" she called, sending her green rings in a swarm toward the weakened Lava Dragon. While it was deleted, the last remaining virus swooped toward Ring. "Don't you learn anything?" she chided. "That doesn't work on me!" With one last slash, the Lava Dragon was deleted. "Easy as pie!" boasted Ring, heading for the control panel.

Mary sighed in relief as the countdown stopped. "Plug out, Ring," she said.

"Let's find that other bomb fast so we can kick Atsuki's tail!" Ring said.

"Pulling a stunt like this that endangers so many people... that's unacceptable." Mary started walking out of the store she'd found the bomb in.

"Someone needs to teach him a lesson—and I'm betting it'll be us!" Ring's image moved to one corner of the display. "I wanna see how Kaita and Turboman're doing," she explained. "It might give us some idea of where the next place to look is."

"Mary-chan," greeted Kaita. "I just found one of the bombs!"

"Which corner?"

Kaita didn't seem sure of how to explain. "I went up behind the elevator..."

"The northeast corner," Turboman explained.

"Ours was in the southwest," Ring informed the others.

"Opposite corners to spread the damage! Of course!" Mary realized. "I bet all we need to do now is reverse directions!"

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The man in the fireproof jumpsuit didn't seem too surprised to be confronted by Manabe, her head encased in a clear smoke hood that let most of her face be seen. "Hello, Miss Officer," he said warmly. "How may I help you?"

"I would think that'd be obvious," Manabe said evenly. "I'm here to negotiate, as long as you deactivate the bombs and let the people in Akihara Tower go."

"And I'll listen, as long as you leave my fires alone for now."

Manabe had no intention of tampering with the setup, but the two Net Saviors slipping past the confrontation to be swallowed by the smoke certainly did. "This thing's been going for a while, hasn't it?" Meiru muttered behind her less fancy, but still functional smoke mask. "Those poor people..."

"The fire department can deal with most of this. It's already starting to run out of fuel," noticed Enzan, looking over at the dying flames in the planters. "That, on the other hand..." It was a roiling wall of fire cascading down over the doors and windows. What was visible of the glass behind it was melting away. But right next to it was a port, and that meant it was stoppable. "Plug in, Blues! Transmission!"

"Plug in, Roll! Transmission!" The two Navis touched down in a system with warped-looking panels and glitched objects—the heat was starting to take its toll on the small computer housing this area. Standing in its center, looking completely unafraid of the risk of the whole thing crashing in an instant, was Burnerman.

"Net Saviors?! Didn't Atsuki just tell you to leave this alone?" he chided.

"Let your hostages go, Burnerman!" commanded Blues, his sword out and readied for a fight.

"Hostages? They're only shoppers," Burnerman said. "Civilians. Wrong place, wrong time. They won't _all_ die when this place goes down."

"We've got very different ideas of what makes a hostage, then," Roll said. The Net Savior Navis stumbled as the whole area twisted under their feet, while Burnerman leapt into the air.

"Burning Jet!" Roll and Blues dove to either side of Burnerman's attack. "I'd love to stay and play, but someone's messing with my bombs. You enjoy yourselves here."

"Bubble Side, slot-in!" Roll raised her arm to fire, but Burnerman was quick to access the warp panel. "After him! Area Steal!" Blues used his superior speed to get ahead, but Enzan wound up using an Area Steal of his own after another skip from the area told both Operators that the computer wouldn't be waiting for their Navis before suffering its meltdown. Blues and Roll were nearly on top of each other to access the warp out as textures dropped out across the area, leaving only the base vectors behind. Noise was beginning to overtake Meiru's screen. She sucked in a breath—the two Navis had looked like they were safe, but there was no telling with the computer in such a bad state.

"Just made it," Roll sighed as her Operator's display resolved itself.

"But where has Burnerman gone?" wondered Blues, who was scanning the area for any sign of their enemy. It was certainly problematic—the server was sectioned off into smaller areas for each store, as well as floor-by-floor. All of it was accessible by warp, but that didn't make trying to find a Navi in it any less like finding a needle in a haystack.

"I'd guess into one of the lower floors' areas," Enzan said. "Stay alert, Blues!"

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Pixels exploded around her as Ring's boomerangs returned to their owner. "Well, that's that settled!"

Mary smiled at her Navi. "Great job, Ring-chan. Plug out." Once Ring had returned to her Operator's wrist, Mary walked over to the cash registers. "Um... Mister? The bomb's disabled. It's okay now..." A tanned man crawled out from under the second register, still fearfully eyeing the black package they'd discovered in a shoebox. Shyly, she added, "You have gum in your hair."

A mighty _boom_ sounded from just outside the sporting goods store, followed by screaming. Mary left the store to find that the pretzel stand was burning. "I bet that's Burnerman," Ring said. "Well, if he thinks he can destroy those pretzel people's life-long legacy of hot, cinnamon-covered pretzels, he's got another think coming!"

"I'm not sure if they only want to be remembered for pretzels, Ring-chan..." She got as close as she could to the nearest port and called, "Plug in, Ring-chan! Transmission!"

Sure enough, waiting for Ring was a bulky Navi armored in red and brown. "What'd you do that for, Burnerman?" Ring asked. "Y'know, maybe some people would've liked to have a snack while they wait for you to lose!"

"Well, with you and your little friend running around disabling our bombs, it's not like anything's going to explode without a little help from me!" Burnerman said. "But I might like this way better," he laughed, shooting a blast of flame at Ring. As she leapt out of the way, Burnerman said, "It's just bad luck that you got caught in our blaze... but I'll make sure you die quickly!"

"I don't think so." Mary called, "Aqua Whirl, slot-in!" Ring straightened her arms to either side and flipped her hands up as she rose off the ground and began to spin faster and faster. Burnerman zoomed out of the way with the help of his Burning Jet, but the typhoon that had encased Ring was fairly fast as well; Burnerman growled in annoyance as it rammed into him, dousing him in water and quenching his flames.

"How d'ya like that, Burnerman?" taunted Ring as the typhoon died away, depositing her on the ground across from her drenched opponent. "I guess you get lazy sitting around bullying people like you do!" Burnerman's only response was to fire a jet of flame from one of his long, cylindrical busters. Ring darted away from the attack, plucking her two bottom rings off her pigtails as she did. "Ring Boomerang!" she cried, hurling first one and then another in Burnerman's direction. She smiled as she received her next chip.

"You missed," Burnerman said snidely, ducking past one and staying well away from another. He turned to see Ring grinning as she slammed her fist into the ground.

"Aqua Tower!" With Ring at point-blank range, it shot up from under Burnerman. He landed in a sodden heap on the ground as the Aqua Tower crashed downward. "Ready to retreat?"

The two yellow bands around his head nozzles lit up - a sign that Burnerman's Operator had plugged in. "This fight hasn't even started! Fumikomizan!"

"Aqua Blade, slot-in!" Ring flinched away from the sudden crash of her blade against Burnerman's. That only helped the red-and-black Navi hurl her sword arm to one side before raising his arm to strike. Ring quickly brought her blade back up to parry, but Burnerman brought it around to aim at her side. All the yellow Navi could do was parry; her opponent's attacks were strong and relentless. "Area Steal!" Ring sighed in relief as she vanished, retreating further back.

"Area Steal!" called Atsuki. Ring was back to struggling to keep Burnerman from scoring a hit. "You know, I could do this all day, but I have better things to do," the blue-haired man said. "So I'll just have to give Burnerman the go-ahead—"

Burnerman drew his free arm back. "Burning Sword!" The flame went straight into Ring's side.

"—to delete that idiotic Navi of yours!"

"Ring-chan!" The Navi fell to the ground, her Aqua Blade disappearing as she clutched at her side.

"Considering what you said, I guess this is inevitable," Burnerman said, grinning. "After all, the bully always wins in the real world—"

"Oh, yeah?" Burnerman swiped his Burning Sword through the air, reducing a swarm of hearts to cinders. "Someone should've told us!" While Roll ran to assist Ring, Blues ducked Burnerman's sword arm and made a wide slash with his sword. Burnerman yelled in pain, sporting a new cut across his chest.

"You're here, too?" asked Ring as she got to her feet, the burn on her side healed thanks to Roll. "What a coincidence!"

"We were called here," Roll explained. She and Ring dashed toward the fight, where Blues was more than holding his own.

"Woody Tower, slot-in!" Blues got away from Burnerman just in time; the chip Atsuki had sent him started at his feet and spread its tree trunks in all directions, forcing all three Navis to dodge.

"Ring-chan, how about we show him a little girl power?" Roll said, her sweet tone of voice belying the grin on her face.

"Why, Roll-chan, I think I'll have to take you up on that one!" Ring replied.

"Battlechip: Wide Shot! Slot-in!" Meiru called.

"Elec Reel, slot-in!" Mary followed up. Once Roll had fired her Wide Shot, Ring electrified it with her Elec Reel. When it hit Burnerman, it paralyzed him on top of scoring what had to be a painful blow.

A triad of Cannons appeared around Burnerman and started firing to protect the red Navi. However, they couldn't save him from what was flying down from above. "Vroooom!" shouted Turboman as he landed on top of Burnerman, then jumped off to join the others.

"You're late!" Ring accused as Turboman straightened. Burnerman was left to log out battered and ignored as Ring ran to Turboman's side. "What did you do, make a stopover at the arcade?"

"I'm sure he came here as fast as he could, Ring-chan," Roll laughed.

"I did!" Turboman was quick to add. "It's just that the viruses on the last bomb took me by surprise."

"Well, that's no excuse. You're still late," Ring said adamantly.

"But I still helped—"

"Late!"

"And everything's okay now—"

" _Late_!"

Above the Navis' heads, their Operators were catching up as well. "I heard you guys took care of that city-wide prank a few days ago!" Meiru told Kaita and Mary. "Nice work!"

"It's a good thing you were there," Enzan agreed.

That made Kaita wonder, "What happened to you guys?"

"We got a fake assignment," Meiru sighed. "Missing documents in the Okuden preserve. It took hours for us to scour that mountain, and then we came down to find out we'd been wasting our time," she recalled sourly.

"I just wish we knew how the assignment itself got planted," Enzan said. "We have safeguards against that kind of thing."

"Maybe it was just someone's prank?" Kaita wondered.

"That would be kind of weird, though, to have two pranks happen at once…" Mary noticed.

"It can't be any less weird than two completely unrelated people causing trouble one after the other," Ring pointed out.

"Anyway, we're really glad you were here this time!" Kaita said brightly.

* * *

Because I managed to forget on Sunday and will probably forget again this Sunday, here's two chapters to catch us up!

Good to see you're still around, MI3! This is the big Black's Relations With Everyone story, so no worries there. As for backstory, that will depend on whether I want to post those unbeta'd chapters. (perhaps the way to go would be to post the chapters, then see when/if the more conclusive ending falls out? That way, everything that is actually finished gets out there, and then if I ever return to this long enough to do the ending, voila, everyone who's following the story gets notified.)


	6. House of Horrors!

Kaita had just finished with his homework when his PET beeped. "Mail from Mary-chan," Turboman reported.

"Huh? I thought she was busy this afternoon." Kaita glanced over at the mail.

 _Kaita-kun,_

 _I'm a little stumped on one of our homework problems. Could you help me out? I'm waiting at the location shown in the attachment. Hurry!_

 _Thanks,_

 _Mary-chan_

"That's weird," Kaita said. "Usually, she's the one who gets done with homework fast..." The location was only a few streets away from Mary's house. Kaita packed up his own homework to use as a reference before heading for the door.

"Where are you going now?" asked Asuna from the living room. "Honestly, it seems like you're never at home or at the shop anymore..."

"I'm just going to help my friend out with homework," Kaita said. "And Papa said he doesn't mind that much."

"I know, I know..." Asuna sighed. "Well, at least it's for a good reason this time. But spend an afternoon at home sometime, okay?"

"Okay!" As he opened the door, Kaita called, "Bye, Mama!"

"Stay safe!" After shutting the door behind him, Kaita began the trip over to Mary's meeting spot. It was a comfortably cool afternoon; spring was just around the corner, and the temperature was starting to warm up a little. There were a few clouds drifting lazily across the sky, their shapes shifting from things Kaita thought he could recognize to abstract tufts and swirls. He was almost disappointed to reach the spot, though he quickly found something else to look at.

"Wow!" Kaita gasped, looking at the mansion behind the slender bars of an iron fence. Its sensible cream paint made its massive size look stately rather than imposing.

"'Wow,' what?" Turboman asked. Kaita held up his arm so his Navi could see. Between the fence and the mansion stretched a garden, its hedges cut perfectly. Topiary trees cut neatly into cones dotted it, as did bushes—not in bloom at the moment due to the temperature. Closer to them were big, stately oak trees. The clay-red trim and roof of the mansion gleamed, set off by the deep greens of the garden around it. "Okay, 'wow' is right."

"There's actually nobody living there," Mary explained behind them. "The owner keeps it up, but he hasn't stayed here for years. Anyway, what did you need my help for, Kaita-kun?"

"Wait, your help?" Kaita asked. "I thought you needed my help."

"But you sent me mail a few minutes ago," Mary said, looking down at her PET.

"No, I didn't! You sent me mail, see?" Kaita showed her the mail he'd gotten, while she displayed hers. They exchanged worried looks - the names' placements were reversed, but the text was otherwise identical.

"What's going on?" Mary asked, looking around. "Is it a trap...?"

A block away, the gate swung open. _"This way, please!"_ called a cheerful girl's voice.

"Should we go in?" wondered Kaita.

"Maybe it's a nest of bad guys!" Ring said excitedly.

"Yikes..." Mary said.

"I'm not finished! If we go in, we can turn the tables and stop their evil plan!"

 _"What's taking so long out there? Come on!"_ said the girl, sounding a little more annoyed.

"Maybe it's a ghost," Ring speculated next.

"I wonder who it really is?" Kaita started walking toward the gate, curiosity in full swing.

"I don't know about this, Kaita-kun..." Still, Mary followed him. Once they were inside, the gate quickly swung shut.

 _"Keep moving!"_ advised the girl. To back her up, a buzzing sound came from around them - lawnmowers were speeding toward them, chewing up the grass in their path.

Kaita couldn't leave Mary behind, but they couldn't just let the out-of-control mowers catch up to them. He pointed his PET to the left while Mary took the right. "Plug-in!" Before long, the mowers came to a halt and Ring and Turboman returned to their owners' PETs.

"Great job," Kaita said. "Now, let's keep going before anything else comes after us."

 _"Hmm. I have to admit, you're not bad,"_ the girl said as they started walking. _"But if you won't run, I'll have to speed things up my way."_ As she giggled, the ground started moving under Kaita and Mary's feet. The two Netbattlers yelped as they fell over, speeding toward the mansion. Just when Kaita thought they were going to run into it, they took a sharp turn to the left, skirting around it. They went past rows of flowers before coming to a halt in front of a rosebush, which had a gap to let visitors into the massive, forest-like backyard behind it. _"Now, keep going forward!"_ The trail into the depths of the backyard was somewhat hidden by trees, but it was still visible enough to follow. Less so was the way further back, where the backyard began to show signs of its years of abandonment. Here, the grass was more overgrown, and the trees were far more numerous. A rabbit hopped past Kaita and Mary, disturbed by the human intruders.

"Look!" Kaita soon saw what Mary had—light was flashing out of one of the trees. Cautiously, the two came closer to discover a full-sized log cabin mounted to the side of a thick tree. Vines had grown around the ladder up, and moss was spreading across the roof and down the walls. "It's sort of pretty, isn't it?" Mary asked.

"Like something out of a storybook," Kaita agreed.

"A few years from now, it'll be completely hidden..." Lights flashed out of the windows, and Mary said, "I guess we're supposed to go into it." The two climbed up the ladder, and found the door had swung open for them. Mary coughed as they stepped inside—everything was coated with dust. Otherwise, it seemed like an ordinary treehouse, though with additional supplies like a kitchenette and some furniture.

 _"Now, sit down!"_ commanded the girl. The nearest seat was a tan sofa. As soon as Kaita and Mary took their seats, seatbelts snapped over them. Dust flew everywhere as the walls retracted to reveal screens and equipment of all kinds, powering back to life after years of disuse.

"What is this place?!" wondered Kaita, taking it all in.

 _"Gate Seven, open!"_

"Ka—Kaita—" stammered Mary. Kaita looked down to see that the floor had vanished from under the sofa seconds before they plummeted down a shaft. Both children screamed as sections of tubing whistled past. They slowed down as they came near the bottom, but only so they could go flying sideways, past flashing magenta lights. Kaita squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips closed as he got a faceful of Mary's hair. This part of their journey was much shorter than the initial fall, and soon they were slowly rising upward. They looked around confusedly at where they found themselves: a cockpit, with clear glass above them and to their sides. Out the window, they could see pink airplane wings and a hangar. "We're... in a jet now?"

"Cool!" Ring said. In front of them, the plane was starting to move. The pilot and a woman on the other end were going through the final steps of taking off as they began to tilt upward. Above, a circular plate moved away, allowing the jet plane to take to the air.

"Who's doing this?" Kaita wondered.

The girl giggled knowingly. _"Oh, you'll see! For now, enjoy the trip!"_

0110110001100001011100110111010000100000011000110110100001100001011011100110001101100101

When they landed, they were ushered off the plane by a platoon of maids. "Now what?" Kaita wondered once they'd stopped in the middle of a sprawling room with a pink carpet.

"Your task is to find the mistress of the house before the day is out," a magenta-haired maid around their age said. "Feel free to get started whenever you'd like."

"What could someone all the way in Kingland want with us?" wondered Mary, looking around at all the doors they had to choose from. The maids didn't answer, all wearing the same polite smile.

Heading toward the middle door, Kaita said, "I guess we'll find out when we get to the end!" He opened it to find a broom closet. "Though this doesn't seem like the way to do that." Something shone out from the dim closet—a key ring. "Hey, this might come in handy!" he said.

"I guess since we're on a time limit, it's okay if we borrow them," Mary said, following Kaita inside to get a better look. Kaita pulled the keys off their peg, but found they were attached to a cord that went into a hole in the wall. "That's odd—" The closet began to shake. Even when Kaita tried replacing the keys, the cord didn't retract—and the shaking got worse and worse. "Kaita-kun, we're falling!" Mary exclaimed. The two Netbattlers could only see the maids from the waist down for a moment. Then, they plunged into darkness.

The broom closet landed with a splash, nearly tossing its two riders out. "Where are we?" wondered Kaita, looking around. They were in an ancient-looking, cavernous room that was largely taken up by the canal they were floating on. Water poured into it from slots in the wall.

"It must be related to the plumbing—a giant sewer," Mary said. They were carried past the skeleton of some animal, and then a very human skull. "And it doesn't look like it's very easy to get out..."

"This house must be really old, then," Ring said. To Kaita and Turboman, she explained, "Kingland's sewers tend not to be particularly modern, especially in dusty dumps like this." Kaita and Mary both gasped as they went by a wall dotted with arrows. "And they're especially difficult to navigate when the plumbing's trying to off you!" The closet suddenly plunged down a small waterfall, leaving the Netbattlers flat on their backs. That helped them escape the arrows that embedded themselves into the closet's back wall.

"I don't think it's safe to stay in here anymore," Kaita said, lifting his head to see a spherical cockpit that was attached via robot arm to the ceiling. A maid was sitting behind the control panel.

"Kaita-kun, plug in to that one!" Mary said, pointing out a circular lump in the ceiling a few meters away with her PET arm. Kaita did so, then ducked back down along with Mary as a second round of arrows came flying at them. As they came closer, the cockpit dropped down in front of them, its glass window falling open. The closet bumped against it, then began to slowly move to the side. Kaita got up on the glass, then helped Mary up before the closet slipped past the spherical pod and away. They got inside, the window rising up to cover them. "Now, take us up!" They rose past the surprised maid and up through the ceiling, where they found a room filled with pods waiting to be used. They didn't bother with those, instead heading out into the hallway. The only door was on the other end, so they started heading toward it.

A giant doll sprang in front of them, blocking the way. Kaita skidded to a halt. "Yikes!" It opened its arms wide. Before it could close them around Kaita and Mary, the boy called, "Plug-in, ! Transmission!"

"Plug-in, Ring-chan! Transmission!" The Navis appeared in the doll's system. Standing between them and the panel that would shut it off was a silver Dream Bit, which opened fire. After Ring jumped away from the attack, Mary called, "Battlechip: Corn Shot!" The Dream Bit stumbled backward on its bug-like legs, momentarily disoriented.

"Battlechip: Samurai Sword!" Turboman shot forward to deliver a long swipe down the Dream Bit's side, shearing off half of its legs. Now that it was immobilized, Kaita sent in, "Mega Cannon!" Together with the Mega Cannon Ring received next, Turboman fired a burst of energy that wiped away the virus. "Now hurry and turn it off!" Turboman zipped forward to access the control panel, then returned to his PET after Kaita and Mary were safe.

"Good work, Ring-chan," Mary told her Navi. "Now, let's see what's through that door." Kaita opened it and stepped inside. Almost instantly, a bookshelf fell toward him. "Kaita-kun!" He barely managed to make it out in time. Once he'd caught his breath, he turned to see Mary's sheet-white face.

"It looks okay from here, Mary-chan," he said. Hesitantly, Mary stepped on top of the face-down bookshelf and over to her friend. "Though I think we need to be careful getting across here," he told her, taking a step forward. The floor beam under his foot sprang up to catch him on the side of his face. "Ow!" He walked around the trap, Mary following directly behind him.

"I wouldn't trust that statue, either..." Kaita looked over at the stone figure he'd been about to walk by and had to agree. They walked to the other side of the room before going past, where the statue couldn't reach them even if it fell. They stopped again to look around. "Up there!" They managed to sidestep a square panel on the ceiling, and then inched past a flowerpot sitting on the bookshelf next to the door. "Now what...?"

On the far side of the next room was a wall full of pictures from security cameras. In front of it was a table, and in front of the table was a high-backed chair. "Well, well, well!" Coming from behind the chair was the voice of the girl who had led them there in the first place. "Not bad, you two!" She stood and turned to face them. She was probably only a year or two older than them, and a bit on the gangly side. Though her clothes looked relaxed enough—a light pink tank top, red capris with a white diamond pattern near the bottom, and heeled sandals - the jewelry and makeup she wore looked expensive. Her hair fell almost to her waist, even in its French braid. "I'm Ayanokouji Yaito," she introduced. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person."

Surprised, Mary said, "You know us?"

"Nothing falls under the radar of the Ayanokouji news ring!" Yaito bragged. "When I heard there were new heroes in town, I just had to test them for myself!" Kaita and Mary glanced at each other nervously. "But don't worry, you passed with flying colors." She turned back to the table her chair was in front of. "Come, sit. Strawberry milk, anyone?"

"Um, sure," Kaita said, following her to the other end of the room.

"So, tell me everything that's been going on!" Yaito said once her guests had sat down. "I've kept up to date on the news, but it's not the same as being there! How is dear old Densan?" A brown-armored Navi stepped forward with two wineglasses and a bottle of strawberry milk. Kaita stared in amazement as the butler Navi served them.

"It's certainly been busy," Mary said. "There's always someone trying to make a scene... Just the other day, someone tried to bring down an entire shopping tower." She then noticed what had Kaita's eye. "Dimensional Areas aren't banned here, like they are in Japan," she explained.

"So as long as we're in this mansion, Glyde can serve us!" Yaito finished.

"As always, it is my pleasure to make you feel at home, Yaito-sama and guests," Glyde said politely.

"Anyway, it seems like you've had your hands full!" Yaito took a sip of strawberry milk. "Fun, isn't it?"

"Isn't what?" Kaita asked.

"You know! Saving the city, going on adventures... it was the best time of my life! Seeing you two today really brought back memories." She swirled the strawberry milk around for a moment, then looked up at Kaita and Mary. "Well, since it's so late, you might as well stay here."

That startled both of Yaito's guests. "Mama's going to be so worried!" Kaita realized.

"So is Mum..."

"We've got phones here!" Yaito said, as if it were obvious. "A piddly little long-distance bill is nothing for me!" She stood, milk glass in hand. "You'll get the best guest suites here," she said. "But before you turn in for the night, I can't wait to hear more about your adventures!"


	7. this didn't have a title? weird

"Is there really anyone here?" Meiru wondered, peering into the warehouse. She and Enzan had been sent emails from Meijin telling them to fight a virus attack at this location, but it looked like it had been deserted for years. The two Net Saviors stepped just inside the front doorway to get a better look around, but there was still nobody in sight. "Maybe this is the wrong address?" When she went to look at her PET, Meiru noticed where they'd stopped. "That's weird. Why are there x-es on the—" A sofa-like chair popped out of the ground, knocking them both to a seat on it. Before either of them could escape, seatbelts clicked over their waists. "I see," Meiru sighed.

"What's going—" The rest of Enzan's question was cut off in a scream as the floor dropped out from under them. Meiru's skirt was long enough that it wasn't lifting up that much, but instinct made her put her hands over her lap.

"Yaito," Meiru said as explanation once they'd come to a halt.

"What does she need all this for?" Enzan asked incredulously as they started moving forward.

"The less you think about it, the better you'll feel," Meiru told him as they sped faster, reaching a glass tunnel that showcased the deep-sea creatures swimming just above them. After flying past enough undersea sights that neither Net Savior was entirely sure where they were anymore, they started slowing to a halt. Just above them was a large submarine, part of its belly peeling back to reveal a rectangular slot. Their seats rose up to fit through it.

Kaita and Mary were already seated next to them, staring in wonder at their new companions. "You really did fetch them," Mary said with amazement.

"Welcome aboard the Yaito-Mako Mark II," greeted a brown-haired maid to their side. The mistress of the ship hopped off her seat to get a better look at her new guests.

"Your face!" Triumphantly, Yaito pointed at Enzan and said, "Finally, after all these years, I've gotten the one-up on you!"

"Since when is this a contest?"

"Since you never come to see me!"

Enzan looked partly exasperated, partly clueless. "When have you ever wanted me to visit you?"

Yaito huffed, "This whole time, of course! I've waited and waited and you never drop by!"

"Did you ever admit that to my face? Because I don't remember hearing anything of the sort."

"Subtext," Yaito stated. She turned to Meiru. "But, anyway, why didn't you tell me about these kids? They're adorable!"

"I didn't think you'd know about them," Meiru said, a sheepish smile creeping onto her face. "We've only just gotten to know them, ourselves. Anyway, how's high school?"

"Oh, you know. Boring, stuffy, et cetera. I haven't gotten out of Kingland in ages!" Yaito jumped back into her seat. "Which is why we're going to find some treasure!"

Enzan looked skeptical. Considering he'd never been dragged on one of Yaito's escapades before, Meiru supposed it was to be expected. "Where?" she asked.

Yaito explained, "Rumor has it there's a ruin right between South Ameroupe and the South Pole. But! You can't see it with your eyes. And even sonar doesn't pick it up! There's only one thing that works on it... wireless technology. People who sail near it say their PETs pick up a wireless connection, but there's nothing around to cause it. And they can't actually access the Internet with it. So it follows that there's something under the water, even if we can't pick it up."

"It still sounds like magic to me," Turboman said, unconvinced. "There's no way we can actually go inside!"

"One man's magic is another man's science," Yaito said confidently.

"Besides, isn't this totally awesome?!" Ring asked her friend, bouncing around him.

"Yeah!" Kaita agreed.

"I guess," Turboman said, crossing his arms.

"Yaito-sama!" the brown-haired maid called. "We're approaching the site!"

"Wonderful!" Yaito lifted her PET arm. "Glyde, found anything?"

"Yes, Yaito-sama," Glyde said. "I am registering a connection with the ruin's network."

"Me too!" Ring said. "This is so awesome!"

"What a strange protocol," Blues commented, examining the available information about the connection.

"It's a wonder we can even pick this network up, much less connect to it," Roll agreed, giving it some scrutiny of her own.

"Tell me when it's strongest, Glyde!" Yaito ordered, turning to a redheaded maid next. "And prepare the Network Sonar!"

"Network Sonar?" repeated Kaita, confused.

"If the only thing it gives off is a connection, that may be related to the method used to cloak it from all other forms of detection," Enzan explained. "So using the strength of that network to map the area will probably give us a good idea of what the actual ruin looks like. Right?" Meiru stifled her giggle with a hand—Enzan was probably right on board with this whole idea now, but he would never admit to any enthusiasm.

"Right," Yaito admitted grudgingly.

"Yaito-sama, it's the strongest right here!" Glyde said.

"Stop!" Yaito ordered. "Launch the Network Sonar!"

The brown-haired maid and a few others had produced a large, bulky instrument. "Network Sonar, launch!" the brown-haired maid called. Meiru and the other Netbattlers clustered around the display as it began to produce a series of dots. "According to this readout, there should be an area perfect for parking the Yaito-Mako right here," the brown-haired maid said, pointing out the bottom left of the display. "With your permission, of course..."

"Go ahead," Yaito said. The brown-haired maid swiftly returned to her position, giving orders with practiced ease. It was then that Meiru realized where she'd seen this maid: all those years ago, she'd been in charge of Yaito's more interesting vehicles, just like now. Meiru didn't have much more time to reflect on that; she braced herself as they began to drop down. "Actually, once you're down there, scan again," Yaito suggested. "It would be great if we could get further in."

"Roger," the brown-haired maid said. They were falling for a moment longer; then, they eased to a halt. The next scan revealed a swarm of dots; "There may be an opening just ahead," the maid reported after she'd gotten a look for herself. "May I proceed?"

"Of course," Yaito said. As they floated ahead, the faint sunlight disappeared completely. But what replaced it was much more immediate. "Are those lights?" Yaito wondered as they continued forward. "Go up!" 'Going up' wasn't completely possible; the Yaito-Mako surfaced in a room whose light was issuing from stone cups carved around its perimeter. Meiru could completely understand why Yaito's next reaction was, "No way."

"See, Turboman?" Ring asked as the hatch opened and Yaito and Kaita hurried out onto the stone floor, followed by the others. "It's really real! Now what were you saying about it being impossible?"

Enzan was the last out. "Someone's beaten us here," he said.

"What?!" Yaito asked indignantly. "It's a hidden ruin in the middle of nowhere!"

"Exactly. Why are the lights on?" Yaito opened her mouth to retort, but Enzan had a point; her peeved look was replaced by concern. Meiru looked around for entrances and found a man and a woman standing on the other end of the room. They looked like the sort to follow crazy rumors even without anything like Yaito's whims; they were dressed in black T-shirts bearing a strange symbol and black parachute pants held up by suspenders.

"A little early for Halloween, isn't it?" she called to them, drawing the attention of the rest of the group.

"These aren't costumes!" the woman said in heavily-accented Japanese. "We dress as the ancient people of Mu did!"

"We eat as the ancient people ate! Sleep as the ancient people slept!" enthused the man. Like the woman, he also had a heavy accent.

"That has nothing to do with this!" the woman snapped before returning her attention to Meiru and the other Netbattlers. "You're just going to have to turn your sub around, because the Ancient Chalice of Mu is ours!"

"Not a chance!" Yaito exclaimed. "If it's treasure, it's mine!"

"Besides, the other Solarites will be coming back for us, and you're blocking the way," the man pointed out.

"Tough!" Yaito said, her nose in the air. "I don't know who you think you are, anyway -"

"Gregorio!" the man introduced. "And that's Fuega!"

"I wasn't actually asking," Yaito said, but Gregorio continued on over her.

"We're members of the Solarites, and we're dedicated to resurrecting the culture of Mu -"

"- And we're not letting you have the Ancient Chalice of Mu!" Fuega interrupted. "This is a race now! There's no way you'll find it first!"

"We'll see about that!" Yaito shouted. There were two doorways at the back of the room; the Solarites took the right one. "We're splitting up," she announced next.

Meiru smiled as a thought occurred to her. "Kaita-kun, Mary-chan, why don't you come with me?"

Mary looked surprised, while Kaita said, "Sure!"

With a wink, Meiru told Yaito and Enzan, "We'll just leave you two alone to catch up!"

As Meiru and the others headed for the left doorway, she grinned as Yaito indignantly yelled after them, "What's that supposed to mean?!"

The doorway led to a hallway, which smelled very musty—to be expected when it was surrounded by water, Meiru supposed. Its walls were also covered in what appeared to be a mural, showing the vague shapes of people dressed similarly to the Solarites. Hieroglyphs lined the top of the wall, but Meiru found them more confusing. She watched the left mural as it told its story; it showed a platoon of sword-wielding people. The army left behind a group of people who had turned their backs on them. They spread throughout the globe, panel after panel showing them slaughtering anyone who stood in their way with gargantuan soldiers at their sides and raising up massive cities in their wake.

"What a barbaric people..." Mary said. Meiru had to agree. At the end of the hallway, the warriors ascended to a massive, saucerlike shape; they landed on top of it and were welcomed with a great celebration. "But why hasn't anyone ever heard of these Mu people before?" Mary asked, coming to a halt. Meiru stopped to listen, and soon heard Kaita running back to join her. "I know that this site was hidden, but where are the cities? Shouldn't we carry some of their influence?"

"Hey, you're right!" Kaita realized. "If they were so strong, how come they're not still ruling over us?"

"I'm guessing you've only just started covering ancient history," Meiru said. "There were lots of civilizations like this—superior to all others, and able to spread to encompass a huge part of the world. But they all overstretched themselves, or fell prey to internal problems, or just had a few bad years... and that was all it took for someone else to move in and take over, if they didn't just collapse on their own." She looked back over at the feasting, singing people in the mural. "This group was certainly more powerful than any civilization in the history books, but that doesn't mean it was invulnerable. When the other people took over, they probably pulled the cities down and stamped out the Mu culture."

"So they'd vanish without a trace..." Meiru and the other two looked solemnly at the mural. "I guess we should look at them as a warning," Mary continued. "The way you put it, this could even happen to us, if we aren't careful."

Meiru hadn't meant it that way. But as she contemplated the celebration in the mural, she saw Mary's point—hadn't there been plenty like it, in her own time? "You know, you're right," she said. "Even now, we can't overextend ourselves. And we can't ever think we're too advanced for something like this to happen to us..." Ruefully, she said, "It must be hard to lead a nation, huh?"

"It sounds like way too much worrying," Kaita said, making a face. "Yuck!"

"And what if the popular opinion is that the nation should overextend itself?" Mary asked. "The leader has to listen to his people, doesn't he?"

"Or else they won't like him," Ring piped in. "And then, it's off with his head!"

"Even if it'll ultimately lead to those people's downfall," Meiru finished. "I bet that's what happened to Mu. Everyone wanted to keep conquering and keep holding onto what they conquered until their civilization fell apart around their ears. It's sort of like what happened to Rome—though you guys aren't there yet, I'm sure," she said.

"You sure know a lot about history, Meiru-san!" Kaita said.

"I just pay attention in class," Meiru laughed. "Everyone would know their history if they studied!" After taking one last look at the unsuspecting revelers in the mural, she walked on, Kaita and Mary on either side.

The next room had a shimmering, orange floor, though it still felt like the same stone underfoot. There were a pair of chairs made out of blue stone, though they were marked with symbols and were patterned in orange energy. What was most interesting was the pair of statues, or what looked like they were intended to be statues. They were like small obelisks, touching the top of the ceiling; and were delicately crafted out of blue, transparent energy, veined with orange energy like the solid chairs were. Meiru stepped closer to one; when she was almost touching her nose to it, she could see minute channels in the surface, most narrower than a grain of rice. She looked over to see Kaita hesitantly reaching a hand out toward the other statue. "Kaita-kun, don't—!"

She wasn't quite fast enough, though Kaita certainly pulled his hand back quickly. "Ow!" Meiru ran over, concerned. There wasn't any blood, but Kaita's fingertips looked a little swollen after their run-in with the energy. "It's weird," he said, staring at the injury. "It felt like there was nothing there, but -!"

"What is this?" Meiru wondered, looking back at the statue. "If it doesn't look solid or feel solid, but it can still do that..." She looked down at her PET. "Roll, does this have anything to do with the system that cloaks the ruin?"

"It's part of the network," Roll explained. "I still can't plug into it, but the signal spikes in this room."

"Guys," Mary said worriedly, "the floor..." Meiru looked down to see it had turned red beneath them.

"I don't think it recognized you," Meiru said, backing toward the other end and pulling Kaita along with her. "Mary, hurry over! We can't get—" The mini-obelisk widened into a wall of the blue energy, blocking Mary off. "—separated," Meiru finished weakly.

"Oh..." Mary looked around worriedly. "Perhaps I should start trying to catch up to Enzan-san and Yaito-chan..."

Meiru had to think hard before making her decision. As a Net Savior, she knew that Mary's well-being was her responsibility in any case dealing with substantiation—which this certainly seemed to be. "There wasn't anything back there that seemed like an unsprung trap, but I can't say that about the side Enzan and Yaito went down," Meiru decided. "Roll, can you call them?"

"I'm sorry, Meiru-chan," Roll said regretfully. "I haven't figured out how to use this network. I can perceive it, but I'm completely unable to interact with it..."

"It's okay, Roll," Meiru said. "But that means you should probably stay near the submarine, Mary-chan."

"Seriously?!" Ring fumed. "We've gotten all this way, and now we have to go back?! Of all the nerve!"

"I understand, Meiru-san," Mary said. "Besides, this was still very interesting!"

"But it was too short!" Ring complained as Mary began to leave.

"Good luck, Meiru-san, Kaita-kun!" With that, Mary left. Meiru knew it had to be pretty disappointing, but at least the younger girl was handling it well.

In the meantime, the wall was still not shrinking, and the floor continued to be colored red. "I guess all we can do is move on and hope for the best," Meiru said.

"Yeah. I feel really bad about Mary-chan, though..." The next room was lined with giant statues in the walls, and many of the stone tiles were shaped like the symbol Fuega and Gregorio had been wearing. "They're just like the huge soldiers from the mural!" Kaita realized, thankfully not touching anything as he stared up at them in wonder.

It was what was further ahead that caught Meiru's attention; square, gold-helmeted heads were mounted in front of a raised stone tablet on the lower level of the room. "Duo...?" She edged closer to get a better look. But it couldn't have been a representation of Duo; the helmet was similar, but the heads had mustaches.

"Careful, Meiru-chan!" At Roll's warning, Meiru realized that there was nothing stopping her from falling at least a story and landing in the dark waters lapping against the platform below.

"Thanks, Roll." There were also no railings on the stairs. "They really didn't care much about safety here, did they?" Meiru wondered, carefully making her way down.

"Or about making sure people could get from one end to the other," Kaita added, following Meiru down. Pointing across the water, he said, "Look at all those platforms!" Besides the one they were on, there were quite a few both across the room and behind them.

"There must be another level that got washed away," Meiru rationalized. She couldn't imagine there being any other way to get across; the room was just too large. "Or maybe it's ceremonial?"

"Maybe." Kaita bounded back up the stairs before Meiru could warn him to take them slower. "There's more of that writing here, too, look!" Meiru began to climb the stairs carefully. "Hurry, it'll go away!" With a sigh—sometimes, it was far too easy to notice that Kaita was twelve—Meiru sped up. She made her way to the top in time to see some orange-lit characters zip by.

"I didn't miss it," she said before Kaita could complain. "But I wonder why it showed up all of a sudden?"

"Dunno," Kaita said. "Let's go further!" A circular stone gateway led into the next hall, which was also fairly spacious. At the far end of it, Meiru could see a huge boulder rolling out of the gloom toward them. "Oh, come on," Kaita said.

It was so ridiculously cliché that Meiru understood Kaita's disbelief completely. "Couldn't they have come up with something more original?" she sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "Like setting the boulder on fire."

"Or making the boulder shoot lasers," Kaita suggested.

"A laser boulder... That would be a pretty cool band name, wouldn't it!" Meiru realized.

"Yeah!" Kaita looked back at the approaching boulder. "This thing could kill us, couldn't it?"

Lame as it was, it was still made of solid stone. "...Probably." Once the novelty had been replaced by alarm, Meiru turned and ran, Kaita keeping pace and screaming just as loudly as she was. They returned to the statue hall and immediately saw their salvation: the stairway down to the lower level. The two quickly ran to the halfway point and took a seat as the ground began to shake.

In seconds, the boulder had passed by and slammed into the wall. A fat peg shot out of it, propelling the boulder into the water. Meiru shielded her face and hair with her arms as a wave of water flew up. "We must be getting pretty far in for something like that to show up," Kaita said, watching the boulder slowly sink down.

Meiru nodded, staring across the water at the statues mounted on the other end of the room as her mind caught up with her. "I get the feeling there isn't any kind of treasure room here, though," she said after a moment. "This all seems to be focused around soldiers, not the upper class."

"So Enzan-san and Yaito-chan must know where it is!" Kaita said. "All we have to do now is find them!"

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Yaito was feeling pretty pleased with herself. Though it was a little disappointing that she didn't have Meiru with her to gush over the oodles and oodles of jewelry she'd found in the latest room she'd explored, it had left her with a new ring set with three rubies in the shape of the funny crest that seemed to be all over the ruin.

("And you're going to give that to a museum, right?" Enzan had asked her pointedly, interrupting her admiration of how well it fit on her finger.

Yaito had found the necklace missing the most gems so she could lift it up and decide, "I'll let this one go, and we can call it even!" before going right back to admiring her ring. Enzan's exasperated sigh went ignored.)

Now, the brightly-colored path - lit by strange, transparent lights of every color that floated in the air-led to one room flanked by a pair of huge statues of warriors. "This must be it!" Yaito exclaimed, rushing into the room's center. "That cup is mine!"

"It is a _chalice_ ," corrected the Solarite woman's voice—Fuega, Yaito recalled. The black-clad woman had entered from the other end of the room. "Nothing like a cup."

"Do you even know what 'chalice' means?" Enzan asked.

"You don't even know what you're looking for," Yaito realized, her cheer quickly returning. In the meantime, she spotted what had to be the Ancient Chalice of Mu—it was in plain sight, sitting between two chairs on the far side of the room. "You guys don't stand a chance!"

"I think not!" Gregorio entered the room, but what was following him made Yaito pay a little more attention. "It is you who won't be standing!" It was a stone statue, just like the ones outside—but this one was walking after its master, halting behind Fuega and Gregorio.

"Solarman is specially programmed to interact with Mu networks and objects," Fuega explained, patting the statue's arm. "He will be more than enough to deal with you, and you are defenseless!" The statue lifted its flat blade in a silent cheer. Yaito wasn't feeling nearly so cheerful.

"Who wants this so badly, anyway?" Enzan asked them. "You don't know what it looks like, yet you came all the way out here for it?"

"Our Exalted Leader demands treasure," Gregorio explained.

"Then take some of that jewelry back there," Yaito told them. "I told you, this one's mine."

"Baubles are not the kind of treasure he seeks. It will please him, but it will not _please_ him," Fuega explained.

"The trinkets, little pay bonus. The Ancient Chalice, large bonus... large enough to finance vacation," Gregorio explained.

"Vacation? Isn't this the vacation?" Yaito said.

"Oh, no. Do you know how many ruins we have visited for our Exalted Leader? Believe me, this is one of the tamer visits. We deserve a break," Fuega said.

"First, we take the Ancient Chalice of Mu. Then, we deliver it to the Exalted Leader. And then..." With passion, Gregorio said, "Then, we go to Panarama."

"Well, why don't you go next year?" Enzan asked.

"Next... _year_?" The Solarites stared cluelessly at him.

"Think about it. Next year, you'll have saved up even more money," Enzan explained. "You'll have built up more vacation hours. And there'll always be some other treasure to dig up, so even your boss'll still be pleased."

To his partner, Gregorio enthused, "With more time and resources, we can see everything in Panarama! We can even see favorites two times!"

Fuega nodded. "It only makes sense to find another treasure!"

Enzan cut in, "So we can take this one."

"Yes!" Fuega elbowed Gregorio in the ribs. "I mean, no!"

"We will take this one and the next one!" she said triumphantly. "Not only will we get more bonuses and more praise from the Exalted Leader, but we'll still build up the vacation hours! We can make two trips to Panarama!"

"That's... not what I was saying," Enzan said, somewhat baffled by the Solarites' thought processes.

"But I have to admit, it was a nice try," Yaito conceded.

"Enough of this," Fuega said. "Solarman, get rid of them!"

"If he can do it, why can't we?" Yaito lifted her PET arm. "Glyde, get in there!"

"It's impossible, Yaito-sama," Glyde said as the statue lumbered over. "I can't just reprogram myself at the drop of a hat!"

"That's not fair!" complained Yaito as she and Enzan ran for it; while he ran straight back, she veered off to the side. "But if you're doing that, I'm taking your treasure!" She knew that as long as they eventually made it out of the room, they had the Yaito-Mako waiting for them; a pile of stone couldn't possibly get inside. Besides, heading for the cup—or Chalice, if they had to call it that—meant that she was putting a weird pillar between her and the cumbersome robot, which would hopefully slow it down some.

Both thoughts were dashed when the statue's sword glowed purple before shearing straight through the pillar, causing it to evaporate into thin air. Yaito grabbed the Chalice, but was fenced in by the monstrous statue. It lifted its arm even as Yaito held the Chalice in front of her, hoping that Solarman wouldn't risk hitting what his Operators were after—

There was a flash of purple at the stone soldier's shoulder, and suddenly the whole arm tumbled backwards and away. Yaito blinked at the fallen arm in astonishment before seeing Mary, already heading for the door, and Enzan, now equipped with a spear whose tip was lit up by the same purple energy. He looked rather handsome to Yaito when he was doing the whole action-hero thing. "Enzan…!"

"Don't just stand there!" he shouted, prompting Yaito to run past Solarman's statue and to the door.

"Plug out, Solarman!" Gregorio called just before Enzan's next swing took the statue's head off.

With the statue holding still, Yaito called, "Hurry up!" The two of them wasted no time catching up with Mary, who was about halfway down the hall. Meiru and Kaita were at its end. "Turn around and tell the Yaito-Mako to be ready! We've got to get out of here!" Yaito yelled.

"Will do!" Meiru said, turning around. Yaito grabbed hold of Mary's hand and half-pulled her along until they were back in the room they'd started in, Enzan keeping an eye on what was going on behind them.

The Yaito-Mako's engine was running when Yaito leapt in, pulling Mary after her. When she turned to see what was going on outside, she saw another statue running at them before Enzan threw the spear at it. As he jumped into the submarine, Yaito yelled, "Dive already!" The statue easily dodged, but it was distracted for just long enough that they were sinking as it arrived above them.

It took the group a moment to catch their breath. "That was weird," Kaita said, looking out the window as they pulled away from what looked once again like empty ocean.

"Weird?!" Yaito asked indignantly. "I take you to a hidden ruin and all you can say is that it's weird?!"

"It was cool, Yaito-chan," Meiru said. "It's just... well, your idea of 'cool' can be a little overwhelming sometimes."

This cheered Yaito up. She laughed, "Of course! The grander, the better!"


	8. Black and Atsuki's Jolly Holiday

_To the Master of the Grounds:_

 _Target Nine is beginning to suspect us. He has a tendency to make us go out into the garden, but has done little else. The situation is otherwise normal, with very little disturbance of the peace. The flowers are unsuspecting. No serious problems have risen from the wasps._

 _I continue to work on the birdhouse. Progress is at about forty percent. That number is expected to rise quickly with the first new installation. If my judgement is sound, the installation will be complete before the month is out. Work cannot begin in earnest on the second installation until the results of the first are shown. However, it should follow quickly on the first installation's heels and spur the birdhouse to completion._

 _My fellow gardener continues to serve his purpose well. Both Target Nine and the flower girl seem to be more hostile toward him than me, but that could be beneficial. I believe that as long as T-Nine takes him to be the real threat, I can slip back into the inner ranks. This effort to regain trust coupled with the first installation will remind T-Nine of my importance to the greenhouse, and will prevent him from doing anything rash._

 _If all goes well, I will return home before the summer begins._

 _Your faithful and humble servant._

Black looked up as he thought, watching the room bob up and down. "Hey, Atsuki..."

"Yeah?"

"Is 'judgment' with one 'e' or two?"

The room stopped moving. "What're you asking me for?" Atsuki wondered. The room resumed motion. "I never fill that straight-to-superior shit out. One sounds right."

Black gripped his laptop tighter as his seat's weight shifted. He looked down at Atsuki, who was now doing his push-ups with one hand. "Show-off." The older man flashed him a grin, then returned his focus to his workout. Black corrected his spelling, then looked over the formal report one last time—not very long, since it had been quiet for a change—before closing it. He then sent it off to zip through the back ways of the Internet to its destination.

"Hey, guys."

Black looked up to see who was in the doorway. "Hi, Yumi." Atsuki gave her a grunt.

Yumi was rolling her eyes at her fellow Nova members. "Atsuki, you're such a guy." She turned her scrutiny on Black in an instant. "And why are you such a wimp, Black? You could stand to do a few of those yourself."

"It's his job to make sure I don't have to," Black said coolly, opening up his main project and typing in a few lines more for show than anything else.

As she always did when he weaseled his way out of exercise, Yumi said, "You might enjoy it."

"I doubt it," Black said. He then added on the customary excuse, "Besides, I'm working." Yumi tried to look at his screen (moving up and down like everything else on Atsuki's back) and he confirmed, "Our big weapon is taking shape." He gripped the laptop again as Atsuki changed hands. "I suppose the Boss wants something?"

"Well, yeah, but we can't go yet," Yumi said. "You can't do an uneven workout. It just doesn't feel right." She took another look at Black and added, "Not that you'd know anything about that."

He laughed it off. "Any luck with that side project of ours?"

"I've got a couple of spots. How much we need to do kind of depends on how well the Ministry goes. And of course, those kids..."

"We want out-of-the-way locations if that's your big concern." Black smirked. "Good, aren't they? And they aren't as restricted in thought as the Net Saviors. It's still a big, dangerous adventure to them."

"They've got fresher eyes. Is that what you're saying?" Yumi asked.

"Yep." He held his hand out flat in front of him to illustrate. "You get comfortable when you're a Net Savior. You know you're good. The idea of someone posing a real threat rarely enters your mind after a while. So you just lure a Net Savior into a sense of familiarity, and yank the floor out from under 'em at the last minute..." He snatched his hand up into a fist. "And that's what separates a successful organization from a failure."

Yumi nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Knowing the enemy, huh…" Atsuki lowered himself to the ground, letting out a long grunt. Black unfolded his legs and got to his feet. "Let's go, boys," Yumi said.

"I bet it's another one of these get-out-of-here missions," Atsuki grumbled as they went down the hall. "What do you bet?"

"I bet you're right, so I'm afraid there's no wager," Black answered. "You could set a watch to our dear Boss's thinking."

"But that's part of what makes our darling Boss so... promising," Atsuki said. Black shot him a look—they were right behind Yumi, and she didn't look pleased by the direction their talk had taken. "That experience," he said, navigating smoothly back into less suspect waters. "A good leader knows what's best," he said as they walked into his office.

"And a good leader knows his men well," Black agreed. "I'd say the Boss does both, don't you, Boss?"

"Absolutely," the Boss said. "And that's why I'd be remiss to leave you two lazing around the base." Atsuki shot a smirk toward Black once Yumi had left them. "I thought you two could use a little free-for-all. Whatever you care to do, so long as I'm hearing about it within a day or two. The whole city is your oyster."

"Sounds good to me," Black said. "It's been a while since we truly had a team mission, hasn't it?"

"Too long," Atsuki agreed. "Thank you for giving us this wonderful opportunity, Boss."

The Boss raised his wineglass in acknowledgement. "My pleasure. Dismissed."

"Everything we need's in my room," Atsuki said the minute they were through the door. "I know just the thing."

He shot Black a toothy smile. The smaller man complained, "Well, don't just leave it there! Tell me!"

"The air show," he said. "Specifically, a huge-ass, privately owned blimp from Kingland that has arrived at the air show," he checked his PET for the time, "roughly five minutes ago." They stepped into Atsuki's room—a spartan affair, much like Black's own. A pair of black backpacks sat at the foot of the bed, and Atsuki wasted no time unzipping one.

"So, we're going on a joyride," Black said.

As he took out a pair of special clips—containing tiny, wireless flash drives, each with a different set of programs inside—and a light pen, Atsuki said, "Not just any joyride, a joyride in the air! If we have to go do something pointless and stupid, it's gonna be balls-out stupid!"

Black laughed. "I guess now the only question is how we're going to hijack this thing."

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"Helloooo!" crowed Atsuki, stepping toward the guards.

"Hi!" Black said from behind him.

"Excuse me, but unauthorized personnel aren't allowed in," the guard said, a little flustered. In Black's book, that wasn't flustered enough. It normally wasn't something he bothered to keep track of. But things like this were so much more fun with Atsuki, and adding in all the additional little details was just part of the deal.

"But we love blimps!" he said with an almost cartoonish enthusiasm. Now the guard was approaching acceptable levels of flustered.

"We just couldn't wait to see one!" Atsuki said, advancing on the guard with aplomb.

"We were all like, 'If we could see this blimp before any of our friends, it would be the coolest thing ever!' So won't you just let us have a little peek?"

"I'm sorry," the guard said nervously. "You'll have to wait for the exhibition..."

"Just a little one?" Black asked. "An eensy, weensy, bitsy, tiny little..." With a swift chop and a bit more force than necessary, Atsuki sent the guard into the dirt. "That's what I thought," Black told the unconscious man. "Thank you!"

"Onward!" Atsuki called dramatically.

"Our destiny awaits us!" Black added.

"Whatever shall we find?" asked Atsuki, pulling out a tranquilizer gun and loading it with darts.

"A blimp, hopefully," Black replied, making sure to stay well behind Atsuki as they skipped into the hangar. "And those must be the previous owners!" he said as Atsuki shot one of the men in the neck. He looked over in confusion before falling to the ground. His friend actually made it a few steps before the second dart did its job. "You hide 'em away, I'll delete the evidence!" Black said, making a beeline for the nearby port.

"Gotcha!"

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The cockpit of the blimp was silent as it slowly rose into the air, Black ready to send Punk in to back up Burnerman in the pilot's seat if things went wrong. Once they were so high up in the air that the airport was a tiny square below them, Black felt free to start poking around the onboard computer. "Why, Aw-tsu-kay, look awt this!" Black drawled in a ridiculous Kinglish accent. "We're Kinglish air exhibitioners! We've got pictures and everything!"

"I daresay, Blawk," Atsuki bellowed, easily matching his comrade, "that is even more smawshing than just having this blimp!"

"Zeppelin!" Black corrected, rifling through his backpack.

"—this zeppelin!"

Black found the flash drive he was looking for—he doubted they'd need it, but it never hurt to be safe, especially when they had pictures of the blimp's original owners in the system—and clipped it to the control panel, where it activated. "There's nawthing like hawving a vacation on your boss's tawb, is there?" he asked, taking a light pen out of his backpack and touching it to the center of the front window. "Punk, set zero."

"You... gawt it," Punk managed. Black doubted the poor Navi's bad accent was even intentional, like his and Atsuki's were.

As he began tapping the pen to each corner of the window, reading off what the display on its side said so that Punk could enter the coordinates into the program on the flash drive, Atsuki said, "Oi'm going to hawve a look-say. Cawll me up 'ere if you need me."

Black left the pen touched against the upper left corner. "And cawll me if you find anything worth seeing; negative five thousand seventeen, negative three hundred ninety-eight, left window is four centimeters away," he drawled without pausing. With that, he began to repeat the process for the left window, starting at its upper right corner.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Atsuki somewhere in the back rooms. "Do come and have a look at this vintage, Blawk!"

Black was quick to finish after hearing that. "It's symmetrical," he told Punk, slipping the light pen back in its place. Loudly, he called, "What's this?" Black ran over to find Atsuki in what appeared to be the on-ship wine cellar. He didn't have much expertise in the way of picking wines, but he knew how his friend liked them—as pricey and top-quality as they came. The bottle in his hands looked like no exception. "What a find!"

"And it gets bettah," Atsuki said, with extra emphasis on the 'tah'. "Our friends in Kingland weren't believers in 'less is more', either!" Black grinned as he looked over the rest of the wine bottles in the well-stocked cellar, which looked like more of the same. He was sick and tired of having to figure out every consequence arising from every step he tried to take, or having to ignore the consequences because something about him didn't want to sit idly by. It didn't help that half the people and places in this town made him remember things, which he hated doing—it meant having to deal with the feelings that he thought he'd locked away years ago. It all resulted in a lot of stress, and getting completely wasted and forgetting everything for an evening was the only relief he knew how to find. Atsuki held out a wineglass, and Black took it. "To our vacation in the stars!" he toasted, pouring them both glasses.

"To us!" Black drank deeply—it tasted wonderful, with just the right amount of warm sting as it swept down his throat. Silently, he willed the alcohol to take it all away, and he felt relief as it started to oblige, the fuzziness starting to settle into his brain. He closed his eyes as he swallowed the next gulp, enjoying the feeling.

He opened his eyes to see Atsuki, the other man's glass much fuller and his smile a very amused one. "You're supposed to take it slow, silly," he chided, grabbing the bottle they were on and a second one and steering them both out the door. "You're so uncivilized."

"You're just jealous because I'm going to have more than you if you don't catch up," Black said, grinning. He felt much, much better.

"This isn't beer. The point isn't who finishes first," Atsuki laughed. "Anyway, if you get too drunk I won't be able to show you around our glorious vessel, and then who's going to miss out?" Black hated missing out on things, so he was careful to take a smaller sip as he and Atsuki tromped down the hall. "Why, Blawk, look awt that! It's a hawtch!" Atsuki proclaimed.

"Wow!" Black ran over, the wine nearly sloshing out of the glass. He took that as an excuse to drink some more. "Where does it go?" he asked, tugging at the handle.

Atsuki set the bottles down and easily pulled it open. "Why, it looks like a storeroom! With bombs and things! Maybe we can carpet-bomb something, if there exists a place in this dump of a city that's actually important enough to carpet-bomb!"

"Dunno," Black said, barely managing to keep up his accent and find words at the same time. "I think... I don't think there's anyplace that important. Maybe we should just pick somewhere at... awt random."

"It's alroight, dear," Atsuki said. "You don't hawve to be Kinglish."

"But I-oi want to be Kinglish!" Black protested.

"You don't seem able to string together words, darling!" Atsuki said, moving ahead to open and shut some doors until finding a good one. "Well, would you look awt that! I think we're hunter-zeppliners, Blawk!"

"What do you need all those guns for?" Black wondered, peering into the room. "You're in the air, that's silly!"

"Got me," Atsuki said, topping off his own glass and then refilling Black's. "Maybe they just feel safer." He grinned, taking a sip. "Or maybe they just felt like giving us a little hand."

"How nice of them!" On reflection, Black wasn't sure if Atsuki was being sarcastic or not, and decided to take a drink. "This all sure will sort out anyone who tries taking this thing back, huh?"

"That's the idea," Atsuki said. "Come along!" He was off again, leaving Black to trail along behind him. "Don't toddle! Get over here!"

By the time Black had caught up, his glass was half empty again. "Dude, they've got a _kitchen_?" he asked, looking around. "I'm jealous."

"You can't cook, silly," Atsuki reminded him.

"You said 'silly'," Black laughed.

"And you're being silly," Atsuki said with a fond smirk. "I wonder if their food stock's as good as their wine selection?"

"I would totally learn to cook if I had a kitchen," Black said. "I'd make myself everything I wanted. Curry and cake and sushi and spaghetti..." he sighed, twirling toward the stove.

"You wouldn't really do that, would you?" Atsuki asked.

"I would. I so would," Black said, completely serious.

"But then you'd be fat," Atsuki said, setting down his wine glass.

"Really?" Black asked. He barely noticed Atsuki gently prying his wine glass out of his hand and setting it aside.

"Oh, yes. Morbidly obese," Atsuki said, hands ready at his sides. "And it'd make it even easier for me to do this!" Black shrieked as Atsuki tickled his stomach, easily getting around any attempts he made to protect himself.

"Wait—stop!" Black laughed.

"Okay," Atsuki said, far too cheerful. He abruptly dropped out of sight. Before Black could even wonder where he'd gone, he was being tickled behind the knees. He yelped, stumbling forward, as Atsuki laughed.

"You're funny," Atsuki said, springing to his feet.

"Geez..." Black crossed his arms and pouted. "But wait!" he remembered. "I know!"

"Oh, no you don't!" Atsuki said, putting his arms down to protect his sides. Black couldn't force his way through, no matter what he did.

"Well, fine," Black said. "If there's cake in the fridge, I'm not sharing!" He opened it. Inside were a pair of dinner trays; one with tiny sandwiches and deviled eggs, and one with tiny, square-shaped cheesecakes. Black popped a deviled egg into his mouth and sat down to best devour the cheesecake tray. "Everything looks so good!" he said around his mouthful of egg. "And—this _is_ so good!"

"Well, duh," Atsuki said, taking the entire sandwich and egg tray out of the fridge. Black had a feeling it was going to return eggless. In the meantime, the cheesecake Black bit the corner off of was delicious, and its crust still had a bit of crisp to it. "Since you took an egg, I'm taking a cheesecake," Atsuki said, reaching down to pluck out one with a candy lime slice on top.

Curious, Black took one of the same kind while he continued to take small bites out of the first cheesecake. After he'd worked his way through it, he was anxious to take a bite of the second. "Oh, that one's good!" he exclaimed, chewing slowly to savor the tang. The next one that caught his eye had tiny, dark flecks in it. He took a bite and found it to be light and sweet. "What's this one?" he asked, taking a second bite to completely chase out the lime taste.

"Vanilla bean," Atsuki said.

Black turned to see how his friend was doing. "Wow, you eat so fast!" The large tray was half-cleansed of deviled eggs.

"No, you eat so slow," Atsuki teased.

Black took a third bite of his square of vanilla bean cheesecake. "This one's my favorite," he decided. "Why does vanilla get such a bad rap, anyway?"

"Because it's too subtle for people with no taste buds?" Atsuki asked.

"Are you saying I still have taste buds after eating nutrient soup for so long?" Black asked skeptically.

"Touché." Atsuki theorized, "They must have been in hiding, waiting for the perfect cheesecake."

"Sure." Black took another bite, sliding it around his tongue. "Maybe people just aren't patient enough," he suggested.

"And they just wolf it down... That would probably be me, come to think of it," Atsuki said. Black was starting to feel full already, but there wasn't much more of the vanilla bean square left. He made sure to enjoy it, committing the taste to memory before he swallowed; after all, things like cheesecakes were rare for him. He didn't particularly enjoy dwelling on that; he reached for his wineglass, and Atsuki handed it to him. Both of them stood, Atsuki returning the tray sans all of its eggs to the fridge and kicking it shut.

The kitchen wasn't far from the cockpit, but Black still managed to finish his wine off before they re-entered. "Some ship, our dahling 'ere!" Atsuki proclaimed as they walked in.

"This is awesome," Black said happily as the room floated around him. "We could, like... We could do stuff in this!"

"We certainly could, mate," Atsuki said, taking Black's empty glass, finishing off his own, and setting both to the side. "And I'm sure we will, in the morning. But for now..." Atsuki lightly set a finger on his temple. "Something's coming to me."

"What is it, Atsuki?" Black asked eagerly. Whatever it was, it had to be exciting.

"Atsuki-sama," the blue-haired Nova member growled, grabbing Black by the hand.

"Wooooo..." Black managed as he was tugged to Atsuki's side. The larger man held him there with an arm around his waist. It was all pretty silly and made him incredibly dizzy, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm getting an idea, Black," Atsuki proclaimed, holding his free arm up for emphasis.

"What?" Black gasped, leaning into Atsuki's body to better see by the angle Atsuki's arm indicated.

"When we're ready, we're going to take over," Atsuki pronounced.

It was their favorite joke, because they both knew it would never be a reality. "He'll never see it coming!" giggled Black.

"And when we take over, we'll have a big parade," Atsuki said, twirling them both around so they had more of the bridge to walk on. "We'll have a float with clowns, and a float piled with bodies to discourage anyone else, and a float with our subordinates. And we'll be on the last one. The biggest, most elaborate float anyone's ever made."

"With balloons?" asked Black.

"Naturally, with balloons! Whatever we want." Atsuki said, "Next, we're going to design ships. Planes, boats, our own armada. And we'll use them to take over—"

"—the stars!" Black said, pointing at them shining in through the window.

"Of course!" Atsuki agreed. "And we'll live above the earth, maybe even in a zeppelin like this one. Every morning, we'll see the sun shining in, and our whole world below."

"How wonderful," Black breathed.

A look somewhere between confused and thoughtful came over Atsuki's face. "It'll still take work," he said. "You'll control the Internet, and I'll deal with the humans."

"But it'll be ours." Wistfully, Black said, "It'll all be ours..." Laughter, more out of joy than amusement, spilled out of his throat. "Hey, Atsuki...?" Black half-fell onto the floor, splaying his arms.

"Yeah?" Atsuki asked, following him to the ground more gracefully.

"This..." Black wasn't sure what he'd been about to say, so he said the next thing that came to mind as he stared up at the ceiling. "This is really lousy for stargazing, considering we're in the sky."

"There's an observation deck just above us," Atsuki said, picking Black up with ease and rising to his feet. Black felt safe there, since anyone wanting to harm him would have to get by Atsuki, and nobody could harm Atsuki. He leaned his head against Atsuki's chest, feeling himself beginning to doze off. "Don't sleep yet, we're almost there!" Black could hear Atsuki's footsteps against the stairs, but his older friend was so careful that he didn't feel a thing. He heard a door open, and then the humming of the ship, and then another door opening. "Here we are," Atsuki said, settling them both on the soft carpet.

Black opened his eye to see stars, hundreds of them, unobstructed by artificial light. "Amazing," he whispered, his attention completely on them. The sky was vast, seeming to stretch into the distance without end. But that didn't make sense, of course it ended somewhere—but would he ever see the end? He probably wouldn't. It made him wonder what was out there at the end, or if it even existed, if he would never see it. He recognized constellations, their names forgotten after all the years he'd gone without seeing them; but they were like faces were to him. He didn't have to remember what they were called. One look and he could remember so much more: telescopes and field trips as the myths built around them were explained, friends surrounding him as they all searched among those stars and wished for silly dreams, shooting stars that aimed to destroy all that he held dear...

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The carpet felt glorious. The sun in his face did not.

Black groaned, scooting himself backward with his arms and feet. He didn't want to move out of the sunbeam entirely; it felt so pleasantly warm. He just didn't want it in his face, where it was blasting his bionic eye with light and making his head start to pound. He had to stop after his stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch, powerless to do much other than groan again. After everything felt like it was staying still, he continued to shuffle backward until he saw the much dimmer ceiling, with tables and chairs at his side. With a sigh, he let his arms and legs flop out again.

Even with his vision unfocused again, he could see Atsuki appear above him with an unopened water bottle. "We've got company," Atsuki said as Black took the water and drank some of it down. It made him feel better enough to ignore his headache, which he could tell would be a good thing when Atsuki said, "That Enzan's got a really nice car. If I were any less honorable of a man, I'd take it."

Black swayed to his feet and ambled over to the observation window, gulping down more water. Down below, a bright red sports car was zooming down the highway, easily keeping pace with the blimp above it. "Is that a Lamborghini?!" Black asked indignantly.

"Yep," Atsuki said. Black clenched his free hand into a fist, speechless from jealousy. "You can't even drive," Atsuki pointed out.

"I don't care," Black whined. "I want a cool car, too." Morosely, he watched the glorious car, all speed lines and flashiness and so completely Enzan that it was almost comical, speed alongside him. "Come on. Let's see if we can't at least do something to get them out of our hair."

"Actually, that's exactly what I was going to tell you about," Atsuki said as they left the observation deck and headed down the stairs. It seems we overlooked something last night."

Black began to nod, then stopped when it made his head hurt. "I can't remember half the details of last night," he said. "What'd we miss?"

"There aren't just small-scale weapons down there," Atsuki explained. "It seems we have the keys to a fairly good-sized mecha. Doesn't quite look like military, but I'm sure it's built for heavy lifting."

"And there were guns in here somewhere," recalled Black. Atsuki motioned him into the room where the mecha was. He connected his PET to it; even without a Navi to pass into the mecha, he could acquire important information like its connection signal, so that he could control it through a different computer. "So the Net Saviors are coming out here to help arms dealers or something? That's funny."

"Hey, as long as nobody's doing anything illegal on the Internet, I doubt they're allowed to care," Atsuki said. "Anyway, I'm sure we can toss 'em in the ocean and be on our merry way."

"As long as we don't throw in the car," Black said, already trying to think of some situation where Meiru and Enzan wouldn't wind up on the receiving end of Atsuki's punishment. Because of the headache, it wasn't very fruitful. "The car goes with us."

"Oh, shit," Atsuki laughed as they entered the cockpit.

"We distract them, grab them, and then steal their car," Black explained. "Considering they're practically on top of us, that'll have to do. We really don't want them finding an exterior port and plugging directly into this thing, which is probably what they're trying to do right now."

"Right," Atsuki said as they took their seats in front of the control panel. "So, what are our names again?"

"I'm Lucas, Nigel," Black said, his Kinglish accent as perfect as he could manage. Considering that he'd passed himself off as half-Kinglish in the past, he was pretty sure it was at least serviceable even after over a year of disuse. "Don't you remember, old boy? We've been on this whole 'who-knows-what-we're-doing-in-Afrikku' bit for years now!"

"Right, right!" Atsuki said, "Punk, be a good man and identity set!" The windows flashed white for a second as the device Black had clipped on the control panel came to life. It used the hologram generator that normally displayed readouts like altitude and distance to replace their bodies with those of the Kinglish air exhibitioners, mapping their movements to animate the images. It would probably provide momentary confusion, which was all Black and Atsuki really needed. "Burnerman, land us on the highway." To Black, Atsuki said, "I do apologize, but if the Net Saviors don't get out of the way, the car is going to be crushed."

"I sincerely doubt they'd be dumb enough to do that," Black said, digging through the backpack next to the pilot seat to pull out his laptop. "Besides, where's the fun in that?" He beamed over the mecha's information once his laptop had turned on. "Okay, connection on..." After overriding a few poorly-protected bits of security that were meant to restrict the mecha's use to Navis, the controls and cameras of the mecha were Black's. He directed it through the hallways of the blimp to its back hatch. As they drifted closer, the car came to a halt. "Help!" he called next. "Those horrible men from Nova are holding us hostage! They—" He paused as if someone had just prodded him with a gun, then said, "Get out of the car and they'll meet you in front." He turned away, then shouted, "Hurry, plug into the zeppelin, you've got a chance—" and ducked away. In an undertone, he instructed, "Punk, drop my identity but not his."

"Now, don't give the game away!" he said as he resurfaced, almost a sigh. Between the headache and needing to find the switch that opened the back hatch, he really wasn't feeling the act that day. "We need a few things before we can just let you in." Atsuki's hand was nearly flush with the control panel and pointing at a small switch; Black flicked it and watched through his laptop's mecha-vision window as the back hatch began to open. He allowed himself a little sigh of relief, then continued, "Perhaps something to the tune of ten million zenny?" while the mecha surged out the door and into the nearby brush.

 _"That's a shitty request,"_ Punk said through his connection.

"Don't do it!" Atsuki shouted. Black always enjoyed Atsuki's acting. His peer's delivery was always so uncharacteristically passionate that he couldn't help cracking a smile, no matter how lousy he felt. "Whatever these foul miscreants want, it can't be anything good!"

"I feel like crap, shut up," Black muttered in Punk's direction. Loudly, he said, "Shut up, Nigey! You can gripe all you want, but it won't change anything!"

Black had nearly forgotten about the Net Saviors below, but what Meiru shouted up to him made him remember fast. "Yeah, especially considering that we're here because we found the real Lucas and Nigel!"

Black and Atsuki looked at each other. "Well, shit," Black said, plugging Punk out and typing commands into his PET. Immediately, the mecha burst out of the bushes right next to Enzan and Meiru, snatching them up in its hands. "Come on, let's get down there!" Atsuki retrieved Burnerman while Black shoved everything that was theirs into the backpack; the larger man shouldered it and ran for the door, Black right behind him.

They had barely reached the side exit before an alert warned Black of exactly what he'd been afraid of—the remote control had been overridden, probably by Roll and Blues. "Hey!" Black yelled, throwing the door open and running out. "You stole my stolen mecha!" He and Atsuki plugged in, causing the formerly stationary mecha to start spinning in a circle at the waist and the now-freed Net Saviors to step backward as a Netbattle ensued inside. Directing his commands to reach Punk's ears alone, he said, "Make the mecha do something really distracting. I don't think we can expect to win against them together." Sure enough, Roll had summoned a Fuanka virus to sweep Blues up and make his Neo Variable that much more dangerous; first Punk, then Burnerman was swiftly hit. Putting aside the twinge of annoyance about where he recognized the tactic from, Black sent in, "Cannon, slot-in!" as a third Sonic Boom hammered into Punk's shoulder plate. Before Blues could aim for Burnerman again, Black fired twice into the base of the Cyclone the red-armored Navi was riding, dispelling it.

"Shotgun, slot-in!" While Punk made a run for the controls, Burnerman sent over an opening salvo to distract his enemies before charging forward in his Burning Jet attack, his Burning Sword already ready for when Blues jumped forward to meet him.

The mecha suddenly ran for Enzan and Meiru, giving Black and Atsuki the distraction they'd needed to escape into the bushes. "If you want to lose 'em, now's your chance," Atsuki said.

"But they're faster than us," Black pointed out. "We're on foot, and they're not."

"Yeah, but if we cut across this wooded area, we're not that far out of town," Atsuki told him. "Give Yumi a call; once we hit the city, we'll lose 'em easily. Besides, if there's one thing I know about fancy cars, it's that they're never, under any circumstances, driven through brush." He smirked. "Now do you think we'll make it?"

"Okay," Black said. "Fuujin Racket, slot-in!"

"Same here, Burnerman!" Atsuki said, slotting in a chip of his own. Roll and Blues had nearly been on top of the Nova Navis, but they were sent flying backward. Before they even hit the ground, Punk and Burnerman plugged out.

Black didn't even bother seeing what was going on back there; he and Atsuki retreated into the forest until the road and the blimp were nowhere in sight before they considered slowing their pace. "Well," he said, catching his breath. "That was fun. We should do stuff like that more often."

"But for now, it's time we got back to work," Atsuki said.


	9. Polyphony

"No," Mary said as soon as she saw the look on her friend's face.

"But I have nuts!" Kaita said. "I'll trade you some! Just a bite?"

"Nope," Mary said cheerfully.

"Pleeeeease?" Kaita asked, watching with great sadness as Mary took a bite of her vanilla bean cake. "Just an itty, bitty, tiny little bite..."

This time, her resolve seemed to be weakening. "Well... if it's just a little..."

"Don't give in, Mary-chan!" barked Ring, shattering all of Kaita's hopes. "You know what his 'little bites' are like! One 'little bite' and half your cake is gone, boom!"

"You guys seem pretty relaxed today," Chisao said. "Not going to get a Netbattle in over lunch, eh?"

Kaita and Mary smiled at each other. "I think we can handle whatever's coming next," Mary said. "Don't you, Kaita-kun?"

"Yep! It's like someone told me recently... we don't need to be one step ahead, we can just do our best and not worry about it."

"I like that. It's been way too tense around here as it is, there's no need to throw in more... tenseness! Then everyone winds up stiff as a board, like this," Ring said, holding her limbs out stiffly.

"So we all turn into Frankenstein," Turboman said skeptically, crossing his arms.

"Besides, between us and the Net Saviors, I think Nova's got it coming to them no matter what!" Kaita added cheerfully.

"Yeah. Burnerman didn't even know what hit him!" Mary said, giggling a little at the memory.

"Saying not to worry seems like good advice, considering how things are right now," Chisao said. "Who told you that?"

Kaita looked down at the remains of his lunch. "Well..." He was saved by the bell. "Well, I'm really not looking forward to the math test!" he said. "How about you guys?"

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"Meijin," greeted Enzan, striding to the podium at the center of the Main Room.

Meijin looked up, slightly startled. "You're here early, Enzan-kun!"

"I'd like your opinion on something," Enzan told him. "Is there a more private room?" Despite the time that had passed, the non-event at Okuden was still fresh in his mind—he didn't know whether that had been an Operator-Navi pair or just a simple script, but he wanted as few people eavesdropping as possible.

"My office'll work," Meijin said. He could obviously tell that Enzan was after something specific; he didn't ask anything more until he'd led the way and they were both seated in swivel chairs. Enzan suspected that as a less important personage than Hikari-hakase or the Commissioner, Meijin didn't have a lot of paperwork; he'd never seen the office have anything more than some mood lighting to the sides, and he couldn't imagine reading hours' worth of fine print in it. "Is this about Nova?"

"Yes," Enzan said. "I want to do a more detailed investigation into their operations—specifically, to find the location of their base." He knew it would sound odd to Meijin at first; they'd never found it necessary to hunt for any other group when so few incidents of note had occurred. He explained, "I've seen Atsuki and Black—" the name always felt odd to Enzan when he said it aloud, but this wasn't the time to start explaining why, "—in action, and I told you about the assistance I got when I found Sigma. They've got to be planning something big, and the sooner we get a finger on their pulse, the safer we're going to be."

"That does sound reasonable," Meijin said. "Does Meiru know about this?"

"I don't want to involve her just yet—if both of us are working on this, it'll be much more noticeable that we're after Nova. That's the last thing I want," Enzan explained. That wasn't the only reason why, of course. He preferred the idea of Meiru finding out exactly what about Nova was so worrying after things were under control. After all, it would be better for Black to explain himself than it would be for Enzan to throw conjectures at her. More importantly, he honestly wasn't sure what he'd tell her, with things the way they were.

"True," Meijin said. "Whenever you find a potential location for the base, be sure to let me know. I'll arrange with the police so that you won't be alone going in there."

"Thank you, Meijin," Enzan said.

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As usual, Meiru spent her lunch period doing something useful—in this case, studying for the upcoming history test. Even so, the alertness that being a Net Savior had taught her caused her to look up right away when someone sat at her table.

"Good afternoon, Yamada-san," she greeted politely. He was in her science class, though he sat on the opposite end of the room. More importantly, he was one of Roll's prom candidates. Meiru glanced down at her PET to see Roll practically skipping in her spot.

"Sorry to interrupt you," he said. Meiru had to admit that he had a fairly pleasant voice, and Roll's main argument for him had been that he was handsome. It just made her wonder why he was bothering with her. It wasn't that she didn't think herself fairly good-looking, just that he was pretty popular—he had most of the school to choose from. "Ah, you bring lunch from home! Good plan."

It was a bit of an awkward start, but anyone coming over was more than Meiru had expected. "Yeah, I took one look at the stuff from here and said, 'I can do better.'" Yamada laughed, and then it was back to awkward silence. Meiru broke it the only way she could think of. "Get any good Battlechips lately?"

"Huh? Uh, no. I... sheesh, I haven't Netbattled in ages. It started getting to where it was way more expensive than it was worth. And I wasn't that good, I guess..."

"Really? That's too bad." After a moment, she decided to go ahead with her next question—not one she'd like being asked by a near-total stranger, but he didn't seem like he'd be as protective of his Navi. "Can I—?"

"Sure," Yamada said, taking off his PET and handing it over. She tapped a few buttons on its underside to bring up the Navi's stat screen. "How'd you do that?"

"Manual control buttons are on the underside," she explained. "I don't blame you for not noticing—they're really just there for emergencies, since the Navi's supposed to handle everything. Enzan had to point them out to me when I first got this model. It sounds like the next release is going to have two models at the same time—a watch-type like this one and a larger one, both with touchscreens." She looked down at the chrome-plated Navi hovering on the screen. "Galaxyman, huh?"

"Greetings!" the Navi warbled, waving at her. Though his top half was a squat torso, his bottom half was a flying saucer; since he had no legs, he hovered rather than stood. His arms were just the right length for the elbows to rest on the saucer when he clasped his hands together.

"He's got some interesting stats," Meiru noticed. "Defense and speed is a rare combination."

"Really?" Yamada asked. "Like I said, I never really got that into it. I had no idea." Yamada thought back a little and asked, "So wait, did you mean _the_ Enzan? Like, Ijuuin Enzan? The Netbattler from when we were kids? Really good, but seemed kind of stuck-up?"

"That's the one," Meiru confirmed. "Though he hasn't been a jerk for... five, six years now, I'd say?"

"And you know him," Yamada said, still impressed.

"Well, yes. We kind of work together," Meiru said a little sheepishly. "Where do you think all those limos that pick me up after school come from?"

"Oh!" realized Yamada. "People just... assume you're rich."

"And weird," Meiru added, almost to herself.

"Meiru-chan!" Roll exclaimed. "I told you, just forget about that! You're a perfectly wonderful person."

"So I've found," Yamada said. "Why don't you get your nose out of the books and Battlechips and come sit with us sometime? You're a pretty girl, and pretty nice, too—no need to hide out here all the time." He stood. As Meiru handed back his PET, he closed his hands over hers. "If nothing else, would you like to go to the prom with me?"

"Of course!" Roll said.

"Good!" Galaxyman said brightly. To Meiru, he said, "Junichi-kun should have a nice person like you to go out with! You're nothing like that creepy stalker girl."

"She's not a stalker, Galaxyman, she's just... never mind," Junichi said. "Besides, Sakurai-san hasn't even said whether she wants to go or not."

"It's just kind of sudden, that's all," Meiru said honestly.

"But you're just in it to socialize, right?" Junichi asked.

"More or less…"

"Same here. I can't stand half the girls who are after me. This'll be the perfect way to settle things—you'll have a date, and I'll be taken."

"And no stupid drama will come of it," added Galaxyman.

"You make it sound like a win-win situation," Meiru laughed.

"'Cause it is!" Junichi said, grinning. "I won't try anything weird, if that's what you're worried about - like you're saying, we barely know each other."

"Well, if you're so trustworthy—"

"Completely!"

"—then I guess I'll say yes."

"Awesome!" Junichi said, accompanied by the cheers of their Navis. The warning bell rang. "Man, looks like I have to get to class. See you around, Sakurai-san!"

Meiru's smile slipped once Junichi was out of sight. "I still don't know," she sighed.

"Meiru-chan, he actually came to you," Roll said. "It could've gone a lot worse."

"I know, but... I still don't feel like I have anything in common with him, or the people he usually hangs out with," Meiru said glumly.

"You've been saying that since... since Netto died," Roll said, hesitant to bring up the name at a time like this.

"It's okay," Meiru said. "But it's true! I mean, nobody Netbattles anymore. Everyone else has some kind of club or sport or something to do after school—I just disappear off to the Ministry. The biggest deal to them is whatever TV show, and I..."

"Maybe you just need to give them a chance," Roll said. "And give yourself a chance. You watch TV sometimes too, right?"

"Yeah..." Meiru flashed her Navi a nervous smile.

"Now, you'd better hurry and get to class!"

Meiru looked down to see what time it was. "Ack!"

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After school, Kaita and Mary decided to walk back in the direction of home together. "That's really harsh, Mary-chan," Kaita sighed. "I can take small bites..."

"He can't, Mary-chan," Ring said before Mary could start waffling on the subject. "He really can't."

"Well, maybe I could cut off a piece for you, instead of you grabbing your fork and kind of... snatching the whole thing away," Mary said. "Would that work?"

As they passed by the park, Kaita said, "All right..." In the middle of the park, a purple-haired person was setting up an expensive-looking camera. When he looked up, Kaita and Mary got a good look at his face: the jewelry thief from the museum, Narcy. "Hey!" yelled Kaita, running over to him.

"Is this what you've done with that stolen jewelry?" Mary asked indignantly as she caught up. "How terrible!"

"On the contrary, I think this is the best thing I could've done. Using art to finance more art!" Narcy proclaimed, "Today, I make my masterpiece!"

"Not if you're going to mess around with the park, you're not!" Kaita shot back.

"You should ask permission first," Mary lectured. "All you need to do is write a letter to the proper people."

From the miffed look on his face, it was clear Narcy hadn't wanted to involve any city officials. "Oh, you'll ruin _everything_!" Narcy scooped up his equipment and jogged away. Kaita and Mary gave chase. Narcy turned a corner, looked back to see Kaita catching up and Mary a little ways behind him, and kept going until he reached a strange, purple-painted building. For a change, he was hardly the most outrageous person around the building. The other patrons were just as odd. Paying them no heed, the two children followed the dastardly director to the door.

"Narcy!" exclaimed Mary. "What are you up to this time?"

Narcy squeaked in surprise. "Why won't you just quit?!"

"Because whatever you're planning, we won't..." Kaita's sentence died in his throat as he realized that everyone else around the building was staring at him and Mary. "Um... hi?"

"Ugh," grumbled a woman in a fish-themed costume, "look at that _outfit_! It's so..." She strutted over to Kaita, bending over to inspect his jumpsuit and bandanna, before rendering her judgment. "... _practical_ ," she said, disgusted. "And whatever this is supposed to be is far too subdued," she continued, poking at the lock of hair that stood up on Kaita's head. "If it had more of a wave to it, or at least changed direction once, it might be okay."

"And this!" said the fish woman's friend, whose hat resembled a buoy. "It's cute... and it all goes well together... but what's the point?" she asked, examining Mary from different angles. "What's the message here? I'm not getting any message." Other people were nodding in agreement.

"Look, I'm sorry, but you just aren't edgy enough for our happenings," a man wearing an erupting volcano on his head said. "Party crashers are fine, but tasteless party crashers? No." And with that, the crowd pushed Kaita and Mary to the edge of the street, separating them from a very smug-looking Narcy.

The two looked back at the building, with its outrageous patrons coming and going. "There's only one thing we can do, Kaita-kun," Mary said gravely, turning to him.

"Yeah," Kaita said, just as determined.

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One visit with Angeline later, Kaita and Mary were walking confidently back toward the odd building. "Oh, you two look so adorable!" squealed Ring from her PET. "They can't fail to let you in now!" She beamed at Turboman. "Don't you agree, Turboman?"

Turboman forced himself to look at the getups Mary's mother had produced for the Operators. Mary at least looked passably normal, if having a hat that looked like whipped cream with a cherry on top was normal. Between the spoon-shaped sunglasses and the Neapolitan colors of her boots, tights, and dress - the hem of which looked like a ring of whipped cream with sprinkles - Turboman had to concede that there was nothing normal about it. But if anything, Kaita's was worse. His hat looked like a computer had exploded on his head and two miniature laptops had gotten stuck to either side, while his suit had keyboard keys for buttons and tablets in place of pockets. What really did it in for Turboman was the boots; he firmly believed that platform heels were girly, even relatively small ones like Kaita's. "Well?" Ring asked. "Don't you think they'll blend right in?"

"Yep," Turboman said without much enthusiasm. "They'll blend in, all right."

Kaita and Mary walked up to the door, still surrounded by fashionistas, and breezed right on by. "That's right. Just walk in like you own the place!" Ring said. The inside was a veritable pink explosion, with some diamonds and blinking orange lights thrown in. Turboman felt fortunate he was separated from it all by his visor and his PET screen. True to Ring's word and Angeline's judgment, everyone inside was dressed just as ridiculously as Kaita and Mary.

"Where's Narcy?" Kaita wondered, looking around the room.

"Perhaps he's gone into a back room," Mary said, walking toward the back of the party area. Kaita looked around at all the appetizers and drinks that people in swimsuits were whisking around the room. Turboman was proud to see him wrinkle his nose at the sight of snails. "Here's a hallway back..." Once he'd caught up to Mary, Kaita snuck back behind the party alongside her. Sure enough, at the end of the hallway was a smaller room, and sitting in it was Narcy. Sitting on the table was what looked like a giant blob of pink.

"This'll bring the Net Saviors out for sure!" Narcy schemed, "All I have to do is set this off outside, and it'll all be deliciously pink!"

"They'll have to notice!" came Jewelman's voice from inside the pink paintbomb. "And when they come, you'll take your revenge, Narcy-sama!"

"And if that doesn't work, I'll turn Net Police Tower pink! And the Ministry of Science, and, and—!"

"That doesn't sound so bad," Mary said skeptically.

"I know," Kaita said. "It wouldn't stop people from using the buildings or anything."

"Where's your sense of pride?" muttered Turboman.

Ring conceded, "Well, people like Turboman might want to scrape all the paint off, and that would cost them a lot of time and money!"

"Good point," Mary said. Both Operators pointed their PETs at the massive paintbomb, beaming their Navis in to meet Jewelman. Then, they retreated back into the party area so Narcy wouldn't catch them, sitting at a table to watch the match play out.

"This floor's sticky!" exclaimed Ring once she'd landed inside. Splotches of pink dotted the ground, all the way to the far end where a pink-and-white Navi was waiting.

"Narcy-sama!" gasped Jewelman.

"How'd you get in here?!" Narcy exclaimed furiously.

"With fashion, love, and justice!" Ring proclaimed.

"That isn't fashion," Turboman said sourly.

"What do you know about fashion?" Ring asked. "Just look at you!"

"I know what looks stupid and what doesn't!"

Narcy interrupted before they could get into a full-out fight. "Get them, Jewelman!"

"With pleasure, Narcy-sama!" Jewelman's gleaming, pink swords dropped into his hands. "Jewel Sabres!" He charged toward the two opposing Navis, swords crossed.

"Silly Jewelman, you don't bring a sword to a boomerang fight!" taunted Ring, sending her green rings out after him.

"Or a tire fight!" added Turboman, zipping to the side to send his Turbo Wheel at an angle. Jewelman shrieked in fright as the projectiles all came barreling into him.

"Why, you... Gold Rush!" Now, it was Ring and Turboman's turn to dodge. "One more time!" While Turboman was busy dodging, Jewelman had regained his swords and was waiting to pounce.

"Better yet! Count Bomb, slot-in!" called Narcy.

"Yikes! Energy Bomb, slot-in!" countered Kaita.

"Bug Bomb, slot-in!" Mary said. The three Navis threw their bombs milliseconds away from each other. The result was chaos. While Ring's Bug Bomb had been meant for Jewelman, it got caught in the explosion caused by the Count Bomb and Energy Bomb, shooting black sparks all over the area. Jewelman screamed in horror and covered the sides of his helmet.

In the real world, Kaita and Mary heard what sounded like a cross between a squelch and an explosion. "What was that?" Kaita wondered.

"Oh, nothing," said Ring with a grin. "Just a little plan going splat!"

Narcy, now much pinker along with the rest of the room he was in, squealed with rage. "Plug out, Jewelman!" As Jewelman was removed from the battlefield, Narcy seethed, "I will get those little _brats_ if it's the last thing I do!"

"We did it!" cheered Kaita. He and Mary both got up to go retrieve their Navis after watching Narcy storm out.

"Now we can go home and change out of these clothes," Mary said. "Though it's going to be an interesting subway ride back..."

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That day wasn't a limo-after-school day for Meiru. There hadn't been any major emergencies that entailed being at the Ministry in the morning and returning there in the afternoon, so she walked home, preferring the slower mode of travel over driving to clear her thoughts. No major emergencies was one thing, but no emergencies was another. There had certainly been those over the past couple of weeks, and few of them had wound up being dealt with by the Net Saviors. On the one hand, taking care of things when it was her and Enzan alone hadn't been easy; she doubted this prom idea would have gotten far without another pair of heroes to cut her some slack. On the other hand, Meiru could only hope Kaita had improved to the point where she wouldn't have to worry if anyone major decided to tangle with him...

Such as the man eating in the outdoor section of a restaurant, attention half on his meal and half on the laptop in front of him. His eye darted over to her. Once he knew his audience was watching, he speared a few pieces of pasta with his fork and lifted it skywards with a flourish. He put the bite in his mouth, letting the fork rest there for a second. Then, he drew it out and held it up before setting it back down. He looked over at her, chewing slowly and purposefully (at least his mouth was closed) as he quirked his only eyebrow.

" _You!"_ Meiru stormed over to him, dodging a few fellow pedestrians and hopping the fence around the restaurant's patio. She plunked herself down in the seat across from his, crossing her arms and glaring daggers once she was settled. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"Mm?" asked Black, putting a hand on his chest.

"Yes. You."

He swallowed. "What have I done now?" he wondered.

"We were out searching Okuden for _twelve hours_ because we thought someone had actually lost a PET full of sensitive documents! Don't joke around about that stuff!"

"How did I do that?" Black asked. "Wouldn't I have had to plant it from the inside? Even I couldn't pull something like that off unnoticed."

"I don't know how you did it, I just know you did it!" Black just raised his eyebrow and began threading one piece of penne onto each tine of his fork. "And why are you being so weird!"

He shrugged and stuck the fork in his mouth. "Mm mmm."

She grabbed one of the breadsticks he'd left and took a bite. "Did you even eat any of these?" she asked. "There's three in here..."

"Of course I did," he said as she took another bite.

She smiled, unable to fight the superior feeling that came with an impending victory. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe it."

Black's eye narrowed. "Can't believe what?"

She polished off her first breadstick and grabbed another one, leveling it at his nose. "Look at yourself in a mirror. It's so obvious. Your teeth don't look too bad, so I figured you were one of those crazies who suck on cheese cubes. And yet here you are, eating something. Well done." She flipped the breadstick back around to bite off its end.

Meiru grinned triumphantly in mid-chew as indignation came over Black's face. " _What?"_

"No wonder you always upset me," she said around her bite of breadstick. "It's so satisfying."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Black huffed.

Meiru swallowed. "Men can be anorexic, too," she said, trying not to ruin it by laughing.

"You—I'm—you think I'm—" Meiru just beamed at him as he spluttered. "I'm _compact_ , okay?! Com! Pact!"

"Eat your food before you change your mind," she said, sing-song. She leaned back in her seat, taking another bite of breadstick. "Sakurai: one."

"Black, twenty million," he said sourly. "Stop bothering me."

"Maybe I'll try telling you that next time you've shown up to cause trouble," Meiru said. "I mean, if you expect it to work on me, then _surely_ it'll work on you..." As Black took another bite of pasta and glared at her, she took more notice of the laptop. "What'cha workin' on?" she asked lightly, leaning forward.

Black pulled it shut with a clap. "None of your business," he said gruffly as he put it in the backpack sitting at his feet. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, really," she said.

"You really have nothing better to do?" Black asked. "No friends to hang out with, no... whatever you school people do..."

"No," Meiru said, uncomfortably reminded of lunch. "Not today."

Black's eyebrow lifted a tiny bit. "Oh, I recognize that look," he said as it dropped downward with the rest of his face into a cruel smirk. "You're all alone at school, aren't you? You, of all people. You must be miserable."

"That's not true," Meiru snapped, even though she knew it mostly was. "For your information, I have a _date_ for my junior prom!"

Hearing that gave Black a shocked, pained look, like she'd just punched him. "A date."

Meiru was all too happy to press her advantage. "Yeah. A date. I know it's just too horrible for you to imagine me in a dress or whatever, but guess what? He thinks I'm _pretty_ , so you can just-"

"Congratulations."

Black actually sounded sincere. Puzzled, Meiru said, "Thanks?"

"For finding someone who'll tell you you're pretty."

Meiru crossed her arms. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you want it to mean!" Black held his PET to the side of the table, causing the bill to appear. He typed out the amount he wanted to leave and said, "Enjoy your date, Meiru-chan."

"I will," Meiru said. Without another word, Black headed toward the inside of the restaurant. "Hey, you didn't finish this!"

"That's because I'm full!" Exasperated, Black wrenched the door open and retreated inside.

Meiru left the way she'd come. "That was weird," she told Roll once she was back on the sidewalk.

"But you finally got him!" Roll cheered.

"Hey, you're right!" Meiru smiled at her Navi. "And you know, I think this whole prom thing is going to work out just fine." The fact that her successfully going to the prom would be a huge blow to Black's entire worldview only cemented her resolve to go through with it.

"I knew it would!" To her Operator's surprise, Roll brought up tons of windows—all dresses and accessories. "Now, we just need to do the fun part!"

* * *

A/N: okay, before I keep going for now, here's the deal: I really can't say much about this recent break in posting other than "between family matters, the last episode I saw of Stream being really bad, a complicated edit my beta asked for in chapter 12 that's difficult for me to come up with now that I'm so far removed from writing this story, and having a close friend be _very_ enthusiastic about a project I started for a different fandom, I pretty much stopped finding the time to post this" and "but I'm sorry, and I'm going to try to post up to 11 tonight and then see if I care about throwing 12 up unedited." If I decide that I'm going to just go ahead and post everything else, it will be all at once like this is and it'll probably leave off the final 5-10 chapters where everything goes nutz with a z (I don't think I've even bothered to fetch those final notes off of Gmail, and it doesn't have a good, short, and complete afterword yet, so it's not like everything gets resolved with what I had anyway!) but you'll get some of my personal favorite chapters out of it, so it isn't all bad.

Also, and this is what brought this on besides my nagging guilt at leaving poor MI3 in limbo for months on end, _have you seen that EXE plush line?!_ Those crane-game plushies were _so rare_ even back in the day, and now here is this plush line that _I might even see in my local Barnes and Noble! holy shit!_ Also, I can't believe they still had that Blues costume lying around from the 2000s. And it's weird that 15 years later, Netto is the only Operator who still gets merch but Roll and Blues are allowed to come along (not Forte, not Searchman, not Tomahawkman, not any of the Operators who used to be much bigger deals than any of these Navis...) but at least there's merch, even if it's just at one event in Japan. I couldn't say that the last time I looked in on Mega Man news...

The weirdest thing, of course, is how it's been 15 years now. _Man._ It's almost as old as the older cast in this fic now. When I started writing this, sixteen seemed like it was a long way away, and now it's a long way away in a different and far scarier sense... anyway, I'd better end this note before it starts getting too sentimental.


	10. In Pictures

"Uh... hello?" Kaita asked, looking around. The room before him was completely dark, without even a hint of light. There was something under his chin and around his legs; he felt around to discover a helmet and kneepads. "Hello? Where am I?"

"I've got no clue, Kaita-kun," Turboman said, activating his PET's flashlight function. It didn't help much, cutting through the blackness to reveal more blackness. "This sure doesn't look like any prize room..."

"That's right!" Kaita recalled, "Mary-chan! We came in together, but I don't see her anywhere!" Cautiously, he took a few steps forward. "Mary-chan?"

"I'm guessing you want out?" echoed a voice as a light snapped on behind him. Kaita turned around to see not Narcy, but a pink rock carved to resemble a giant head. Next to it was a barred gate. Though the statue looked nothing like Narcy, it was definitely his voice that said, "Well, then, let's get started! Beyond this gate is the Hidden Temple. Somewhere in the Temple lies the exit. All you need to do is find the parts of the Pink Monkey, and the doors are open! But fail, and it'll all come crashing down..."

"Where's Mary-chan?" Kaita asked, looking around the dark room for her.

"Oh, you'll meet up... as long as you get through." It was clear that Kaita had no choice; he got ready to run. As the barred gate lowered, Narcy crowed, "The clock's set for three minutes! On your mark... get set... go!" Synthesized music started playing as Kaita ran up the steps and into the temple.

Jewelman, toning the nasal quality of his voice down to provide a somewhat authentic announcer voice, piped up next. "And the first room is the Crypt! He's got to pull down the hands of the right skeleton to open the door!" It wasn't that hard, since there were only two of them. They weren't particularly scary, either; they looked like the mummy decorations they were. Kaita pulled down first one hand, then the other. Clutched in the second skeleton's hand was a piece of shiny pink plastic with two feet on it. "And there's the first piece! Will he find the other two before time runs out? I don't know, folks..."

"You bet I will!" Kaita shot back, running for the next room.

"It's the Mandarin Hand! Push the fingers up to hold the globe!" It took a little effort to shove the oversized fingers into place, but Kaita did it. "I bet you're wondering how much time you've got, huh? Well, we'll add in the heads-up display in post production. As for you... you just have to guess. Too bad!" While Jewelman was running his mouth, Kaita was heading into the next room. "The Laser Light Room! He's gonna have to find the white laser behind the boxes!" Kaita was really hoping for another piece of the monkey statue, which was a bit annoying to have to carry around. But box after box came down, and he found neither white light nor pink plastic. "Ooooh, he's spending a lot of time in there!" It had to be one of the higher boxes. Kaita climbed up the ladder to get at them. "But wait! He's got it! The doors are open!"

Kaita knew better than to climb up - it was clear that he'd started at one end of the temple, and the exit would presumably be on the other. "None of these challenges are that hard!" he taunted, dropping off the ladder and running into the next room. He nearly toppled into the ball pit below. "Whoa!"

"The Pit! Can he grab the rope and swing across? Well, if he thinks this is so easy, why don't I change it up a little?" The formerly stationary rope began flying around. No sooner had Kaita reached for it than it was somewhere else. One grab after another found it swinging away to the other side. Kaita reached for it, but his fingers barely scraped the rough rope.

"Just a little more..." Gripping the Pink Monkey piece tightly, Kaita reached further than he'd dared before, grasping the rope as his feet fell away from the platform. He first tossed the statue onto the other ledge, then hauled himself up to step off on it. Jewelman didn't even need to explain; Kaita just hit both buttons next to the doors. One popped open, and he ran through.

The first thing he saw was the torso of the Pink Monkey. But as he ran for it, a skeleton dropped out in front of him. Kaita yelped and scrambled backwards. "Oh, don't hesitate now! Time's running out in the King's Storeroom! Break the jars to reveal the key, then find the correct hole!" Kaita was already smashing pottery. As he went for the jar closest to the Pink Monkey torso, he picked up the statue on the way and snapped it onto the legs. It seemed to be holding fast, giving him one less thing to worry about. "And there's the second part! But will he find the third? He's got less than a minute left!" When he got to the jar, he found it had a red pole in it. "Now to find the hole! It's under that mess he made with the jars..." Kaita brushed it all aside, finding the hole on the far end of the room. As he put the key in, the door in the center opened. "He's on to Medusa's Lair!" Sitting next to the Medusa bust was a pink monkey head, which Kaita completed the statue with. "And the statue's complete, but he's not out of the woods yet! He's got to find the snakes to get through to the Gateway!" Kaita looked down to see that the ground was sandy. He scraped the pink sand aside to reveal a plastic snake, which he stuck into its place on Medusa's head. After doing the same for the next snake he found, the door opened.

In the center of the Gateway was a plinth, which Kaita put the statue on as soon as he saw it. "Okay," he said, surprised to find himself a little short of breath. "I did it!"

"Five—" The door rattled open. "Four—" Kaita bolted through the doorway to find himself confronted with more stairs. "Three—" He ran up them, hoping Mary would be on the other side. "Two—" He opened the door—sturdier than anything in the temple—to find himself on the rooftop of a building. "One—!" A rumbling sound effect came from the speakers next to him. "Congratulations! Well, you've made it. Now, why don't you rest here while we see to dear Mary, hm?"

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"Now, dear," said the woman dressed in shimmering scales and a fish hat, "time's up."

Mary looked at the fish woman in surprise. "Can't I have a little more time? To prepare myself?"

"I'm afraid not," the fish woman said. "It's over. Time to face the music, honey."

Mary took a deep breath, summoning her confidence. Then, she gathered herself and walked into the next room, where Narcy and a man wearing a volcano on his head were waiting for her. "Well?" Narcy asked. "Let's see it."

"All right..." Mary placed the painting on the easel. The three adults crowded around it, murmuring to each other while Mary waited to the side. After some time, they went back to the table and sat.

"I don't know," the volcano man said. "It's okay, considering the limited time you had. But it's so trite."

"It wouldn't sell," Narcy scoffed. "It's not very original to draw wildflowers."

"It's peaceful, dear," the fish woman said, "but nobody likes _peaceful_ these days. It needs to be more... _challenging_. Make it say something important."

Mary tilted her head to the side as she considered the critiques. "But that isn't the point of art."

"Of course it's not." The volcano man realized what he'd just said. "Wait, what?"

Mary explained, "Art isn't just about being challenging or selling copies. It's about expressing yourself, however you may be feeling. If your heart isn't in it, you'll never truly be making art."

"Wow," the fish woman said, hushed. "That's deep."

The volcano man was examining the painting again. "I get it now," he said. Narcy looked from one to the other, realizing that the tables had been turned. "You're a very content little girl, aren't you?"

Mary smiled. "I think so."

With that, the fish woman gave her verdict. "Though it required a little explanation, and who has time for _those_ , I'll still give her a pass."

"I'll give her a pass, too," the volcano man seconded.

"Majority rules," Narcy said, disappointed. "You survive until the next round. Now hurry and get in the next room!"

"Thank you," Mary told the panelists. Then, she walked over to see what else Narcy had in store for her.

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"We're ba-aaaack!"

As he hadn't managed to find a safe way off the roof, Kaita figured he might as well go along with whatever the next task was. "So, what now? _Double Dare_?"

"Try _Survivor_! See that rope over there?" asked Narcy via the speakers.

Kaita had noticed the rope, but the roof was three stories off the ground—and as if that wasn't a sign of sure death, the traffic speeding across one of Densan's busiest streets was. "No way."

"Yes way. Or do you want to stay on this roof until you fall over from dehydration? My dear boy, that just wouldn't be a fitting end for you!" Narcy huffed, "You've just been getting in the way and getting in the way. It's driving me absolutely _insane!_ So I'm going to get even, and I'll be damned if it isn't perfect for TV! So no boring deaths!"

Kaita considered his chances. On the one hand, the stairway down was blocked by the ruins of the Hidden Temple, and sitting around would get him nowhere. On the other, it was a long way down, but as long as his grip stayed firm—as long as he didn't linger up there—he could make it. "Fine," he said, crossing to the rope. "No boring deaths."

"Survivors ready—hey, I haven't said 'go' yet! Of all the nerve—!" Kaita paid no attention to Narcy's tirade, instead concentrating on making sure his hands made it to the rope one after another. He supposed he should've paid more attention to the crowed, "Take this!" that preceded a loud creaking sound. He looked up to see a huge pink donut falling right in front of him, and froze so that it whistled past.

The screeches of brakes echoed up along the walls of the buildings to reach Kaita as he continued on, trying to quicken his pace without compromising safety. But that only made the next sudden stop, which allowed a big clown head to sail past, that much harder. "And to think, you're only halfway there!" laughed Narcy as Kaita slowed, then had to go faster than ever as grapefruit slices began to fly right toward him. They were normal-sized, but it was their oversized cousin that was the real danger. It clipped the rope as it fell past and Kaita reached for the next handhold, leaving him dangling by one arm as the other flailed for the bouncing rope. All the shaking gave him a great view of how high he was; the cars stopped in front of the fallen projectiles seemed to be the size of toys, like Kaita could just pluck one out of the road with his swinging arm. It would've been a cooler view if he couldn't also see his feet dangling below him. He looked up to see that it wasn't far now. With the rope a little stiller, he could swing his arm up to grab it and continue on with new determination.

"No, no, no! You're not out of this yet!" Before Kaita could scramble onto the next rooftop, he looked up to see a giant barrel upend itself over him. All he could do was cling for dear life as a torrent of pink lemonade washed over him. Now drenched and possibly sticky later, Kaita struggled onto the rooftop. He could hear annoyance creeping into Narcy's voice as he said, "Well, you're lucky I didn't really think that would do it!" Kaita had a feeling Narcy was lying; he knew that if the lemonade had been a little more forceful, he would've been toast—or jelly, considering the fall. "After the break—your reunion with darling Mary!"

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Mary looked around at the new room, still nowhere near figuring out what everything in it was for. It had a large screen and a smaller one at one end and a large prize wheel on the other. She couldn't get a better look because she was stuck behind the wheel—a row of tall spikes had popped out to keep her in place. From the way the floor was put together, it looked like she was on one end of a conveyor belt that went around the wheel.

Suddenly, the voice of the volcano man echoed out, "Please welcome your hosts—Narcy Hide and Jewelman!" Narcy strutted on stage, while the screen powered up to show numerous green tiles and Jewelman appearing in a shimmer of pixels.

"Now, today's contestant is competing for the top-dollar prize of progression to the next room. You'll be guessing a five-word book title today—"

"Oh!" Mary exclaimed as some of the tiles behind Jewelman turned white. "That's a lot to guess..."

Jewelman looked back at the mystery phrase—only two lines long—and then at Mary. "You've never seen this show before, have you?" Mary shook her head with a little smile. "Well, it's pretty easy. Narcy-sama tells you what to do the whole time, anyway."

"But," Narcy cut in, "it's also very difficult. People who know all about it have lost everything in the end! Just like you will!" He tossed his head and snapped his fingers. A trapdoor slid open on the other side. Though Mary couldn't see it over the wheel, the screen over Narcy's head showed it for her; a vat of something pink being churned. "Now, every time you guess a letter right, you'll get closer to moving on. But every guess wrong, and you inch toward being smothered under this nice, pink gum!"

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the original show," Ring cut in.

"It ups the stakes," Narcy explained. "Now, give it a spin!"

"Okay..." Feeling a little lost, Mary tugged on one of the spokes sticking out of the wheel. While it turned, Ring scrutinized it.

"Hey, weren't they just playing for money before?" she asked. "I kind of remember this, but it's been a while..."

"Only kind of? You're a Custom Navi, you should remember right away," Jewelman said.

"And you're just the letter-flipping lady, so shut up!" Ring shot back.

Meanwhile, the wheel had stopped on _Confetti_. Mary shut her eyes as pressurized air and pink scraps of paper flew in her face. "Don't just sit there! Pick a letter!" commanded Narcy.

"Okay," Mary said. "Um... gosh, there're so many..."

"Oooh! I remember this now!" Mary lifted up her PET arm to see as Ring advised, "Pick a vowel!"

Narcy leaned over and glared at Mary. "Aren't you not allowed to consult with your Navi in the middle of a show?"

"I don't think there's anything in the rules against it, Narcy-sama," said Jewelman, shrugging.

"Okay... I'll try 'A'," Mary said.

"Two 'A's!" Jewelman strutted over, laid a hand on the first letter in the top row's last word, leaned over to touch the bottom row's last word, and breezed by to the other end. "You can keep guessing until you guess wrong."

"I bet it's 'and'," Ring said. Mary had to agree—there were only two letters following the 'A'.

"'N'," she said next. "So if I never guess wrong, I can just win the whole thing like this?"

" _If_ you never guess wrong, which I find highly unlikely. Two 'N's!" The second word in the top row had an N in it, leaving five letters; meanwhile, the 'A' changed to 'AN'.

"And now for 'D'," Mary said next. Ring cheered as Jewelman uncovered the last part of 'AND'. "'Something-n-something and something," she read, thinking.

"Keep going with vowels," Ring said. "But not too many vowels! With some of 'em, there's lots of vowels, but shorter ones don't have every vowel."

"Right," she said. "'I'!" There was only one 'I', and when she asked for "'U'!" she got similar results. "'E'." She and Ring exchanged grins as four 'E's were uncovered. On the other end of the wheel, Narcy was glowering. "Might as well... 'O'!"

"No!" Mary yelped as her spot lurched to the side. Narcy exclaimed, "Finally! Spin again!"

"Okay," Ring said, chin in mittened hand. "Now it gets tricky." The wheel stopped on _Bananas_ , and Mary covered her head with her arms as a shower of bananas fell on her. "'E In-E and E Au-E... Maybe there's a 'The' in there somewhere."

"It's worth a shot," Mary said, picking up the freshest-looking banana and peeling it. Then, she looked over at Narcy suspiciously. "Hey... You didn't... you know, put anything in these, did you?"

"No," Narcy said. "I didn't think you were going to eat them!"

"Well, I've been here all day," Mary explained. "I could do with a little snack. 'T'!" she said before taking a bite. Sure enough, the first 'E's got 'T's at the beginning of their words, leaving one blank space to be filled by "'H'!" After that, Mary had no idea what to guess next. She looked down at Ring for advice.

"I think it's up to you, Mary-chan," Ring said. "Don't know what could be under those last few..."

"Okay... 'B'?"

"Wrong!" crowed Narcy with glee. Mary looked over at the now-visible vat of pink gum with worry—three more wrong guesses, and she'd be falling in.

Quietly, she reminded herself, "It doesn't matter which letter doesn't do it. It could be completely obvious..." She finished off her banana, then spun the wheel and received _Ducks_ for her effort. "How cute!" she said as they paraded around on top of the wheel, around her feet, and everywhere else they'd fit, obviously wondering how they'd gotten there and how to get out. "Uh... 'C'."

"One 'C'," Narcy said, pulling out a handkerchief and slowly biting down hard on it. Mary saw why as soon as Jewelman had put the letter on the board.

"'-Ince'... 'Prince'... ' _The Prince and the Pauper_ '!" The spikes keeping Mary in her spot lowered, and she stepped out from behind the wheel, careful not to hurt any ducks in the process. "Once I got the hang of it, that was kind of fun!" she said.

"Oh, sure," Narcy said, coming towards her. "But you have no idea what's coming up in the climax!"

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"Good evening, Mr. Brat," Jewelman greeted in a deep voice with a funny accent. Coupled with his slightly nasal speech, Kaita had to laugh. "Hey, what's so funny?"

"You," Kaita said, still laughing. "I was expecting something a little more threatening."

"And that's what you'll get," Jewelman said. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to rescue your dear friend and escape alive."

"Okay, J," Kaita said. "But I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Protocol, Mr. Brat, blessed protocol."

"Right." Kaita looked around at the briefing room they were in. "So, don't I get anything, or...?"

"Of course," Jewelman said. "You get a water gun, some paper, and a pen, which is secretly just a pen."

"Oh. Thanks." Kaita found the objects in the center drawer of the desk in front of him and stuck them in his backpack. "Say, why am I the hero, anyway? You want me to lose, right? Why not make Narcy the hero and me Blofeld or something?"

"Fourth wall!" hissed Jewelman, leaning in closer. That had no effect on Kaita, since he was an image on a two-dimensional screen. "Narcy's the director-slash-producer! He doesn't act!"

"Okay," Kaita said. "But I'm not acting, either."

"Oh, for heaven's— Just get out there already!" Jewelman flicked his hands toward the door. "Shoo! Shoo!"

"For Queen and country!" Kaita proclaimed, throwing open the door and running outside. "Whoa!" It was like laser tag on steroids—he was at the side of a dark room filled with the trees, the mud, and even the sounds of some damp jungle. Kaita took out the water gun—at least it was a Super Soaker and not some dinky dollar store one—and shook it. It was half full. Humming the Mission Impossible theme, he began his trek through the forest. "Hey, wait," he said after passing a few stands of trees. "Maybe I shouldn't mix series." Even after having said that, it felt like the right thing to do. With a shrug, he kept humming and going.

A splash alerted him to the fact that he'd found water, and keeping his foot in it told him it was moving. He knelt to fill his Super Soaker up all the way. "Now I'm ready. Bring it on, Blofeld!" He struck a super spy pose, pointing his gun at an imaginary camera, then went toward where the current was coming from. As he'd thought, things got wetter and wetter as he kept running. "Say, Turboman, do you think we get a car?"

"I don't see why not," the Navi replied. "I mean, every spy movie has a cool car. The only question is, where is it hiding?"

"Yeah." Kaita slowed his pace a little, noting all the clumps of trees. "There are plenty of places you could stash a car in here. I mean, look at all this stuff!" Said 'stuff' was a tangle of thick branches, which had closed off the path Kaita had been taking. Being a fairly small boy, he just maneuvered through the brush instead of finding a different way.

As he fell out of the branches to hit the ground—thankfully just sand here and not mud—Kaita heard Mary call, "Kaita-kun!"

He scrambled to his feet. "Mary-chan!" Then, Kaita looked at what she was sitting over. "Alligators!"

Mary called, "Actually, they're crocodiles... the snout's pointier..." No matter what they were, there was a pit full of them below Mary's seat. Luckily, there was also a rope ladder extending from below the platform she was on to where Kaita was. And there, on the other side of the pit, was a small Kinglish car.

"The Bratmobile!" Kaita realized, his face lighting up.

"All right!" Turboman cheered with even more enthusiasm, obviously awaiting the high-speed chase that was sure to come.

"What are you boys doing down there?!" Ring shouted. "We've got a damsel in distress up here! Hurry up!"

"Actually, I'm okay," Mary said. "This is pretty stable, as long as I stay still..."

Kaita stashed the Super Soaker in his backpack. "I just hope it stays that way!" he said, climbing up the ladder. He could see why Mary had decided to wait for him - it was pretty wobbly, though at least the crocodiles seemed to be asleep. "Okay, I'm right below you," he said. "It looks like there're a couple of pegs you can climb down..." He spotted something else near the bottom, something black and shiny. "Wait a minute, better idea!"

"What?" asked Mary, standing on the top peg and holding on tight to the platform at her waist.

"Hang on," he said, plugging Turboman in. "I think we can just ride over, as soon as I cut this..." As he pulled out a Swiss army knife and started cutting through the rope, Kaita realized that this was supposed to be the part where he used some kind of fancy gadget, not his own tools. "Oh, well," he said to himself. After the rope fell away, he threw his arms around the central pole. "Ready, Mary-chan?" he called.

"As ready as I'll be," she replied.

"Okay, Turboman, go for it!" With that, they were moving across the pit, weaving around sleeping crocodiles and bumping into grumpy ones. On the other side, Kaita hopped off, then helped Mary down from the top. From there, they headed for the car.

"I've always wanted to drive one of these!" Turboman said before Kaita opened the door and plugged him in.

"Really?" Mary asked as they got in. "Cars like this are dime-a-dozen in Kingland..."

"Not exactly. Look behind you," Kaita said. He turned to see what Mary did—the engine and a series of pipes sitting where the back seat would've been. "This is a stunt car! Since all the weight's in the middle, it's easier to handle, and it's got a roll cage so we're safe if we have to do something crazy."

"So there's nothing in the hood..."

"...and nothing in the trunk, yeah. There's other stuff that goes into 'em, too, but those're the biggest differences."

"Enough talking about it. Let's get this thing cruisin'!" It was right in the nick of time—they heard a low rumble coming from somewhere to the side. Turboman zipped away, mowing down branches like they were nothing. The next things in his path were flamethrowers. "Yike!" The Operators screamed as Turboman swerved away, giving them a great view of the flames coming at them. The rumbling was getting louder.

"Mary?" Kaita asked, looking over at her. "What's wrong?" She was looking out the back window, eyes wide. Kaita took a peek for himself to see a giant wave of pink slime rolling toward them, swallowing anything in its path. "Step on it, Turboman!"

"I'm stepping!" They shot forward, Kaita and Mary clinging to their seats as Turboman weaved expertly around obstacles. Just ahead were the doors; Mary needed no prompting to plug Ring in, then retrieve her as they swung open. The car swerved into the road, dodging obstacles and the less fortunate cars that had crashed into them. At the end of the road, the pink slime pouring out of the building and onto the road behind them, Turboman came to a halt.

"I think we've made it," Kaita said, getting out to get a better look. Mary did so, too, sighing in relief at their adventure's end.

Unfortunately, though they'd escaped the most dangerous part of the slime wave, it was still coming. Before either of them could open the doors again, they were sprayed with pink slime. After that, there was silence.

"This is... kind of disgusting," Mary said, trying to wipe some of the goop of her face.

"Yeah," Kaita agreed. "Hey, why don't we head to my house and get this cleaned up some?"

"Really? I've never been to your house before..."

"Better late than never, right?" With a giggle, Mary nodded. "Let's ride, Turboman!"


	11. Night Vision

Despite the untamable nature of the Ura Net, there was activity scattered around it. Hawkers of illegal goods and services set up marketplaces; Navis whose Operators preferred the darkness carried out transactions and schemed in those marketplaces in relative safety; hackers gathered as well to discuss their craft and feel superior to the ordinary Navis and Operators. And one Navi, his hooded cloak concealing his armor and most of his face, regarded it all with an unreadable expression. He wasn't here to break apart these low-lifes, though the Net Police would probably appreciate it. He was here on his Operator's business, to watch and to listen.

Somewhere in the darkness, in the crowds of unusually-designed Navis and heaps of dubious programs, there had to be answers. Either Nova was more than the sum of its parts, or it wasn't a group at all; someone else could be pulling the strings. All Blues needed was the right name, or the right Navi passing through. They'd found nothing the normal way, but that didn't satisfy Enzan any longer. In the teen's opinion, they hadn't been looking hard enough. The enemy was out there, and so it could be found. Even if there was no bigger threat, Nova was problematic enough. Their base had to be located; Black's weapons had to be destroyed.

"—yeah, they're good, but what do they really plan to do—?"

In the meantime, Blues found hearing the opinions on Nova to be quite interesting.

"—too ambitious, they're doing too much too quickly—"

"—spreading out to Jawaii? They never get lasting crime over there, and suddenly major virus attacks break out—"

"—the only threat they have is their hacker, I'd love to see the mess he'd make unburdened by the others—"

"—the Net Saviors can't even compete—"

Blues focused his attention on that conversation, slightly irritated by the thought.

"Well, what do you expect? The Net Saviors react," a busty, husky-voiced Navi told her strange, stitched-together ally. "They're not a preventative force."

"But on a technical level, Nova outclasses them. Think about it—the Akihara Tower incident, that blimp flying over the countryside for almost two days—those are hardly small-scale pranks! If Nova had wanted to really fight those two lackeys, they could and would set more than one or two people to it, which says they have yet to show their true power." The patchwork Navi drummed its fingers against each other and grinned a pointy-toothed smile. "You know, I'm considering forming an alliance with them. When they want to, they'll crush the Net Saviors. What I want to see is where they go after that."

"Well, don't all these organized types want to rule the world?" asked the woman Navi. "It's what I can't stand about them. Iron-fisted types of rule never seem to last long in the big picture."

"But that's what I'm saying," the patchwork Navi said. "Maybe they're aware of the big picture." Blues frowned, thinking over what that could mean.

"I didn't figure you the type ta hang out here." Punk's gruff voice was close by; Blues whirled around to find him standing just behind, arm and cable crossed. "Cloaks are nice an' all, but there's more than one way ta identify a Navi."

Blues and Enzan were well aware of that; in fact, Punk showing up like this worked to Enzan's advantage. After all, Black was the hacker. Other than his fighting skill, Punk was a completely normal Navi. "What I do is my business," Blues said, forming his sword.

"Oh, yeah? Well, how about you keep your nose outta mine!" Punk threw his shoulder plate at Blues. He probably wasn't equipped to notice if Blues's sword was infused with a little something extra, or if it was transmitted as Blues blocked the giant discus centimeters from his face.

"I didn't come here for a fight," Blues said as the discus returned to Punk's shoulder. "Besides, this is hardly the place for it." He'd done what needed to be done; turning away, he said, "Considering your recklessness, I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities for a rematch." The familiar feeling of being swept up and away was accompanied by the dissolving sight of Punk making a retort as Blues was plugged out.

Next to Blues's window was the display telling Enzan where Punk had gone. "It seems we have a little outing to make," Enzan said, standing.

"Absolutely, Enzan-sama."

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The pinprick of light that denoted Punk's location was now moving through more local networks, ones that could more-or-less be mapped to real-world streets and buildings, and Enzan was wasting no time following the trail. He had no delusions about his method of tracking; chances were the game would be up the moment Punk returned to Black's PET. For now, though, it was doing its job, leading him down the streets of Densan until he was downtown. It wasn't too worrying that Black was almost certainly not in the base. Enzan could still find and follow him—though his trenchcoat and hat weren't necessarily ordinary, he didn't look much like himself in them. With any luck, Black wouldn't know who he was until they were both on Nova's front doorstep.

The place where Punk's dot finally held still was some kind of club. Enzan's Net Savior I.D. and a reassurance that he was here on business got him in. He scanned the crowd of people, looking for anyone who looked even remotely like Black, but there were no signs of him. He looked down at his PET just in time to see Punk's light—still right where it had been, thankfully—fade out. "Blues, is there a back way out?"

"Yes, through one of the storerooms. Customers aren't permitted to use it."

"Like that'll stop him," Enzan said. Blues displayed the building's schematic, effectively giving Enzan a map of the area. He stepped through the crowds of people to station himself in front of the entrance to the back rooms, giving the room another scan once he was there. There was a chance Black was just disguising himself in some way, and most of the people here were much taller than him—if he was still here, he'd stand out, no matter what he did. Even with that in mind, it was still a little strange to think that Black was the blonde, blue-eyed man who was casually leaning against an empty table a few feet away—whether it was a mask or a hologram, it was a very convincing disguise.

On second glance, there was something not quite casual about how Black was holding himself—he was fixed in his pose, mimicking relaxed more than anything. "You still can't act," Enzan muttered under his breath. When Enzan saw what Black was looking at, he frowned; there was another man in a trenchcoat and hat chatting up what looked like half the waitresses.

He looked back over to see Black staring back at him and nearly swore. The smaller teen was inching backward, toward the more populated area and the front door beyond it; as his stumbling turned into a run, Enzan strode after him. The crowd slowed him down, but not enough for Black to make it past opening the front door before he was back in sight. Enzan wasn't far behind him as they went into the street, the last remnants of wintry wind harmless in the face of his coat and jeans. Black was trying to run, but he was already starting to slow down. It was a bit sad, really; his job was probably so sedentary that he had no real motivation to stay in shape.

The smaller man turned down what looked like the start of a side alley, and Enzan caught up just in time to hear him gasp, "That wasn't there before!" Enzan nearly retorted that it was part of a restaurant's renovation and had been there for a long time, but then remembered exactly how long 'a long time' was: two years ago.

"You're using four-year-old information," he informed Black. "You didn't really think nobody was going to construct new additions along this road, did you?"

Black stared at him. "You're not what's-his-name," he said disbelievingly. "Who are you?"

"Who's—" But then Enzan remembered; the other trenchcoat-clad man. "You certainly are popular, aren't you?" he noticed as he closed the gap.

"That's hardly my fault!" Black said. His brow furrowed as he leaned forward, carelessly peering under Enzan's hat. "You're Enzan?" he asked.

Enzan's eyes narrowed as he caught a whiff of Black's breath. "And you're drunk," he said, disgusted.

"I'm only _slightly_ drunk! There's a big difference!" Black's disguise vanished, revealing his normal face—a hologram after all. He continued, "But, Enzan, your voice is really different. It's still kind of weird when you say stuff and it comes out—I honestly didn't recognize you, even if that's a lame costume!" Before Enzan could think of anything to follow that non sequitur, Black finally noticed where they were and why: "You were _following_ me!" he cried, horrified. "You said you wouldn't!"

"I said I'd pay you no more attention than I would any other criminal like you," Enzan reminded him. "But there's a lot you have to answer to, from what I can tell. I have every reason to be concerned."

Black frowned. "But I haven't here—how do you—you ran a background check on me?! But we—you guys don't do that!"

"It's standard protocol. That you weren't aware of that was your choice. Now, considering that this attempt at stealth is a bust—" Enzan eyed Black's slightly off-center stance before adding, "—and considering that you probably aren't in the right state of mind to recognize subtlety anyway, I'm going to ask you to direct me to the Nova base. I'm sure you can guess where we're going after that."

"You won't arrest me first?" Black asked.

"Then your friends would know you've been taken in, wouldn't they?" Enzan asked. Black pressed his lips together; at least he wasn't completely devoid of common sense. Enzan supposed that was the difference between 'slightly drunk' and 'completely drunk'. "Now—" Black shifted his weight, giving Enzan plenty of warning before the smaller teen barreled forward. His wrists were so thin under the jacket that Enzan didn't dare grip them as tightly as he was capable of; he was light and his struggles weak, worryingly easy to keep in one place. Enzan waited for Black to stop fighting before he said, "Direct us."

Black had little choice but to stumble along as Enzan walked out of the alleyway and down the street. "Look, I just don't want anyone getting worried," he said. "Things need to go normally, or it's not going to work."

"There's such a thing as 'normal'?" Enzan asked, skeptical.

"Smoothly," Black corrected. "Everything needs to go smoothly."

"For you, or for me?" Black pointed Enzan down a side street, and the two made the turn. "Furthermore, I can hardly ensure the right 'things' go 'normally' if I don't know who it is I'm making them appear normal for."

"I—" For a while, there was no noise but the sounds of their shoes on the concrete and the cars roaring past as the uniform blocks of pavement inched by. "That's a secret," Black said. "And I can't tell anyone, not just you."

"But—" Someone much larger bumped into Enzan, knocking Black out of his hands and nearly to the ground. The force of it felt deliberate. As Enzan stumbled forward, he realized who the new person was—and that for him to keep running, something had to be amiss.

"Hey! We were trying to have an important talk here!" Black shouted after the other trenchcoat-clad man. " _Rude_!" Before he could shout anything else, a low buzzing began to fill the air. Enzan turned to see what was coming, but there wasn't anything in sight yet—whatever it was was probably large and still on the main road two blocks away. "What's that?" Black asked, turning around to face the same way Enzan was.

Years of experience had taught Enzan that standing one's ground against what was probably going to be a swarm of tiny flying objects was a very bad idea. Black was still dumbly standing there; as he began to wonder, "Are those—?" Enzan snatched his wrist and ran for the nearest side pocket in the street.

Black seemed transfixed by the swarm of tiny camera-bots as they buzzed past, choking the street from ground to rooftop in their silver cloud. "See the kinds of people who wear trenchcoats?" he breathed, otherwise not moving. "It just screams 'I'm suspicious'."

"I'm guessing he isn't one of yours," Enzan said, frowning at the still-unending sea of robots. They were meant to be inconspicuous—the size of a flea—but how had so many gotten here?

"No," Black confirmed, holding his PET wrist with his opposite hand. "Think these are all slaves?" he asked.

"Slaves?" Enzan asked.

"Oh, right, you wouldn't know." Black explained, "They'd all be connected to one master, and carry out its orders. We plug in and drop the group's master, they all go down."

He was already lifting his PET; Enzan followed suit. "Plug in, Blues! Transmission!" Through his display, Enzan saw what Black had said he would; a tunnel streaming data in and out was on the far side of the small cockpit of the camerabot. Blues rode the stream up to find Punk also arriving in the master camera-bot.

"Cut off the lower half of the entries, but keep the front ones going," Black instructed Punk. "He probably won't notice that anything's wrong that way." It made sense—there would be a greater element of surprise when they confronted the perpetrator. If the tiny robots were programmed to follow the trenchcoat-clad man, they would also make it much easier to find him. "After that, just lay low and let the master program do its thing."

"Gotcha," Punk said, accessing the list. Enzan looked up just in time to see every camera-bot passing in front of their hiding spot fall straight down from the sky.

"This must be every drone for miles," Black noticed, kicking a few around. "They sure make 'em small around here. All the ones I've seen are like planes."

"They're not meant to do anyone harm or survey large areas, just to aid investigations," Enzan explained. "Something of that size would only be useful for military purposes."

"But to get this many, he sure must be mad," Black said. Enzan silently noted the slight avoidance of subject. "They're getting away—let's go!"

On his own, Enzan probably would have caught up to the cloud of camera-bots much more quickly. It was easy enough to spot even on ground level, and it wasn't faster than his sprinting speed. But the entire night would be a waste if Black slipped away, so Enzan stayed at the other teen's pace. Black seemed either more tired or more worried by the time they found the cloud, far from where they'd started. They were in a seedier part of Densan, one that still sported damage from long-ago battles. Enzan frowned as he looked around, seeing massive gouges in one condemned skyscraper that had to have come from some massive creature's claws, perhaps Falzer's talons. Years ago, the city had started a massive undertaking to fix up damage like this, coinciding with the ban on Dimensional Areas. But money only went so far, especially in this day and age, and it didn't surprise Enzan that the clean-up project hadn't gone as far as it had been intended to.

"Was he really going to wait around for me all night?" Black wondered, clearly familiar with where they'd stopped.

"He was looking for you?" Enzan asked.

"Well, yeah! I would think so, anyway, if he's out here. See—"

"You!" the trenchcoat-clad man shouted, his drone army parting to let him through. "I thought you'd be at that club!"

"Well, I was, but then I kinda got double-teamed," Black explained, gesturing to Enzan. "It felt weird, so I left." He frowned. "Why are you after me?"

"Your virus, that's why!" the man yelled. "It attacked my friend's Navi once it was done with the guy I set it on. He's little more than junk data now!"

"Well, your friend wasn't there when I gave you that virus, was he? How am I supposed to code around exceptions I don't know about?" Black shrugged. "I don't do refunds. It's your fault, not mine."

"You were giving out viruses?" Enzan asked. It seemed like a rather reckless thing to do.

"No, I was _selling_ them," Black corrected. "It's just a game, it's not a big deal or anything."

"A game," Enzan repeated incredulously.

"You're calling that monster a _game_?!" the trenchcoat-clad man asked indignantly.

"Yeah, sort of—" Enzan wasn't impressed. Black babbled, "Well, see, Atsuki told me about it—he wanted to see how much money I could get out of people while I was doing this mission. He thinks it's really funny." He pushed a few buttons on the underside of his PET, then held the display out for Enzan to see. "Coding for that tournament helped a lot, too—I've made over fifty million zenny!"

Enzan looked back over at the other man's reddening face, then at Black's dumb grin. "You're both idiots."

"We have all kinds of games like this! How was I supposed to know?!" Black looked over at the trenchcoat-clad man and flatly stated, "Anyway, you wouldn't have bought it if it couldn't do so much damage. So it really is your fault." He squinted his eye. "I don't even remember you."

"Tatsumaki, from last week," the man growled. "You'll remember me soon enough, when I kick your sorry ass."

"I'd like to see you try," Black said. He raised his PET arm and commanded, "Punk, shut 'em down!"

Tatsumaki turned around to watch his drone army fall in sheets. He seemed to have been robbed of any words. In the meantime, Blues returned to Enzan's PET, having nothing else to do inside the robots' system. "Tornadoman!" Tatsumaki commanded next. "This leaves me no choice!" What marched out of the alley near its master looked like it had been cobbled together in a garage, no casing softening the look of its raw parts. It wasn't just appearances that worried Enzan; it was the four circular saw blades that were spinning on the robot's arms. "This is just between the two of us," Tatsumaki told Enzan. "If you're smart, Mr. Net Savior, you'll stay out of this—"

"And if you were smart, you wouldn't monologue," Black said, sending Punk toward the robot. "Besides, I don't see how I can give you your money back if I'm dead, even if I wanted to. But after all this mess, I really don't think that's happening."

"But I'm sure you wouldn't want to end up missing anything important, would you?" Tatsumaki said. "It's awfully hard to program if you don't have any hands!" He snapped his fingers, and a second robot appeared—slightly larger, and sporting a giant fan, but missing the dangerous-looking saw blades. It was fairly obvious that its purpose was to push targets back into the other robot's clutches.

Rather than find out whether it was really capable of that, Enzan called, "Plug-in, Blues! Transmission!"

The thing inside the secondary robot seemed to have already taken a lot of damage, but it was still a virus—and quite capable of attacking, as it swung its pasty body at Blues. The red-armored Navi leapt away, but the virus broke its limb into two strings, extending itself toward Blues from two directions. Enzan knew that Black could take care of himself in a Netbattle; his focus needed to be on assisting his Navi, not what was going on in the real world. "Stone Cube, slot-in!" The block was positioned so that Blues could touch his boots to it and jump off at a different angle, leaving the virus to strike the object and allowing him to evade the attack. "Magma Cannon!" Blues unleashed a torrent of lava on the Stone Cube and the virus that had shaped itself around the object, causing it to shrivel back until the half-eaten cube dropped back to the ground and vanished. "Neo Variable!"

Blues sent out two Sonic Booms to the base of the virus, shearing it into three pieces; while the center one fragmented into oblivion, the other two exploded outward, spattering Blues before Enzan could send in a defensive chip. They reformed into a cord tying Blues by his ankles and yanked him upward. "Aqua Sword, slot-in!" With a shout, Blues sent a piercing wave of water down to sever the base from the ensnaring cable, then set himself free with a more precise cut. Even having acted quickly, there were what looked like acid burns where the virus had touched Blues's armor.

At that point, there was only one thing that could have distracted Enzan from the Netbattle. He glanced up to see it happening; Black making a break for it while Tatsumaki yelled, "If he won't stick around, go beat his friend, Tornadoman!"

"Wait—" But though the saw-bot looked taken care of, the fan-bot was still operational, and it was plenty powerful; Enzan was knocked to the ground by a blast of air before he could say much else. "You know, I was here to arrest him," he told Tatsumaki, getting to his feet. "But since you've guaranteed that I've lost him, I don't think I'll bother humoring you much longer." To Blues, he called, "Program Advance!"

Tornadoman held his green-gloved hands up. He looked like Punk had already done a number on him; the wings on the sides of his helmet were sporting bent feathers and whole chunks missing from them. "Uh—look, I know he's awfully petty, and sometimes he doesn't think, but, uh—Tornado Tango!"

"Sword!" It was very tempting to just rush through the Program Advance and see what happened, even with the small, erratically-moving tornadoes that Blues was now constantly leaping over. "Wide Sword!" The only thing keeping him calm about the whole mess was that Enzan now knew Nova's base was nearby, if not on this exact street. It had to be, for Tatsumaki to look here for Black. He almost had enough to justify returning with backup. "Long Sword!"

"White Wind!" called Tornadoman, summoning a faint mist, before Blues swung down and he screamed, "Plug me out, _hurry_!" Enzan had to guess that the White Wind was a damage dampener; the fact that Tornadoman was pulled out of the fight instead of near-instantly deleted suggested it worked fairly well. With Tornadoman gone, Blues held the Dream Sword's energy to the original virus opponent. It fragmented into smaller and smaller pieces before finally being deleted under the blast.

Enzan looked over to see Tatsumaki sprinting away. "Blues, collect residual data from Tornadoman. We'll track him down tomorrow."

"Roger." Blues focused on the data around him, slowly solidifying fragments of Tornadoman's data into a small cube. Using the Ministry of Science's tracking software, it would be easy enough to find Tornadoman again and arrest Tatsumaki—if not for purchasing a virus and setting it on others, then for disrupting an investigation.

The second interruption of the evening made it clear Enzan's hunch was right. "Do you really want to be standing out here at this hour?" Atsuki asked, sauntering up from the street Black had fled down. "In this part of town, you don't know who could be watching."

"Oh? Then why are you here, Atsuki?" Enzan asked coolly. "Don't tell me it's just to give out friendly advice, _at this hour_."

Atsuki's expression darkened. "Don't bother trying to find us," he snapped. "We're not a bunch of kids with science projects, and certain people in our group can't afford to have someone sniffing around at all hours—if I see you out here again, I won't bother with some shitty robot to make sure you don't come back."

"Enzan-sama," Blues reported.

Enzan plugged his Navi out, then turned back to Atsuki. "Noted," he said, then turned to leave. He hadn't taken a step before Atsuki grabbed him by the shoulder and practically threw him back around to meet the huge man's fist, knocking him to the ground.

"Smug bastard," Atsuki growled. Enzan could hear him prowling away rather than see him—he had a feeling he was going to have a black eye after this.

But he was right. Even if his head felt like it was going to explode from Atsuki's punch, he knew he was right. He had Nova's location. All he needed now was enough backup to keep Atsuki from strangling him the minute he set foot in their base.


	12. Where Nightmares Really Do Come True

A/N: You know how I said chapter 12 has problems? Well, this is actually not chapter 12, it's chapter 13! But I always really liked this one, and while chapter 12 introduces Junichi's posse, you already know the man himself, so this one can be read just fine slightly out of sequence. Therefore, in case I never manage to fix the one part of chapter 12 that has problems, here is chapter 13 anyway!

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Meiru was walking toward the front gates of her high school, surrounded by the chatter of her peers, when she heard someone behind her shout, "Sakurai, wait up!"

Meiru's first thought was that somebody was feeling awfully forward. Her next was that it was probably natural, seeing as Junichi was her prom date and they'd already spent some time together. Following that was a hint of guilt; she'd said she was going to give this thing a fair chance, and there she was digging her metaphorical heels in. "Sure thing, Yamada!" she replied, leaving off the honorific with some difficulty.

"I've got soccer practice, so I've gotta be quick. But my friend works at the amusement park downtown, and she got me a pair of tickets—"

"Hi, Junichi," said an overly-sweet voice. Meiru turned to see a black-haired girl. She seemed short to Meiru, but most girls of average height did. Her flinty smile was what set her apart; she meant trouble, no matter how innocent she tried to look.

"Hello, Kizuki-san," Junichi said, stepping toward Meiru.

"Interesting company you've got there," Kizuki said lightly. "Anyway, I was wondering if it was true you're already taken for the prom?"

"I am," Junichi confirmed, no malice in his voice.

"So you're really going to go with _her_?" she asked, feigning shocked.

"How rude!" hissed Roll from her PET. Meiru looked down to see that her Navi's face was bright red with fury.

Junichi was evidently a master at keeping things polite. "Yes, Kizuki-san, I am." He turned back to Meiru. "Anyway, as I was saying—"

"Sure, I'll go!" Meiru said.

"'Go'? Ooooh, that's fast!" Kizuki butted in.

"We're not dating-dating, we're just going to the amusement park. As friends," Junichi clarified.

Unable to resist, Meiru commented, "You seem to find it more interesting than it really is, Kizuki-san."

Kizuki pursed her lips.

"How does this Sunday sound?" Junichi asked, starting to walk them toward the exit and leaving Kizuki behind.

"Great!" Meiru said.

"So, is that the stalker?" Roll asked once the distance between them and Kizuki had increased.

"Roll!" Meiru exclaimed at first, but then recalled their first conversation as Galaxyman started talking.

"She's horrible! I was hoping she'd go away now that Junichi-kun has a prom date, but no!" Galaxyman's warbling voice made even his fuming sound cute to Meiru. "I can't believe she has the nerve!"

"Well, some people are just not nice," Meiru said with a sheepish smile. "I don't really mind. Trust me, I've heard worse."

"It isn't you as a person," Junichi said as they arrived at the gate. "You just need to socialize a little more, maybe join a club or something, and people'll see you're cool."

Meiru had been thinking of Black, Madoi, and many other villains who'd shared their gift for insults, not anyone at school. Sensing the danger in clarifying, she just smiled and nodded along.

"Anyway, I've got to get to soccer practice!" Junichi said. "See you Sunday!"

"You too!" Meiru waved to Junichi as he jogged away. "I think that went okay," she said.

"It was a perfectly normal conversation, Meiru-chan!" Roll confirmed cheerfully as her Operator started walking in the direction of home.

"I can't believe we're going somewhere. And so soon…" A sudden wave of nervousness gripped her.

"So, that was the boyfriend?" Meiru nearly jumped. She turned around to see Black standing behind her. "He's nice. Kinda cute. Bit pedestrian, though."

"What are you doing here, Black?" Meiru asked, focusing her best poisonous glare on him.

"It's not hard to find out that you go to school here," Black said. "They even have your picture. It doesn't seem very secure—I don't think you should keep going to school if you're serious about your work."

"It isn't secure if you _hack in to find my picture on purpose!_ " Meiru took a deep breath, then managed to not yell out, "I don't know what I did to you besides be a Net Savior and have a life, but this is going way too far. Knock it off, or the next time, you're going to get your sorry butt landed in jail a little early."

"You can't do that, you have to catch me in the act," Black said.

"I'll find a loophole," Meiru said venomously.

"Whatever, Meiru-chan. Bye," Black said.

"What, that was it?!" He didn't respond. Meiru stared sullenly after him as he walked away. "This is the worst," she complained to Roll.

"No, it's not! You're going to the park with Junichi-kun, that's a good thing!"

"Unless Kizuki-san goes even crazier," Meiru said skeptically. "Or Black gets proactive with his hatred of all things prom-related…"

"It'd be a little weird if you and Junichi-kun didn't spend any time with each other before the prom. Besides, you already know you can handle Black, and I don't think Kizuki's smart enough to do anything." Roll smiled with amusement, then saw Meiru's expression and sighed. "Just… give it a shot, okay?"

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Meiru arrived five minutes before noon, wearing a sundress that she had bought a year ago and then never had a chance to wear. "The last time I was here was…"

"When Swordman attacked," Roll finished quietly.

"I hope it's changed," Meiru said. The thought of having the reminders of that day following her through her date with Junichi was not a pleasant one.

"Yeah, today should be about you and Junichi-kun," Roll agreed. "You know, it wouldn't give anything away about your being a Net Savior if you tell Junichi-kun that something bad happened when you were here with someone else, and that you'd like to find somewhere else to go."

"I don't know where else I'd suggest, though," Meiru said. She looked up at the roller coaster, no longer in pieces like it had been when her grip had slipped from its peak. "This is a lot harder than it seemed at first."

"I know what you mean," Roll said.

Meiru looked again at the roller coaster. It seemed like the cars might have been a different color, and the track might have been laid out slightly differently. If everything had changed like that, it was practically an entirely different amusement park. Then, it wouldn't be so bad.

"Sakurai!" Meiru turned to see Junichi jogging up to her. "Wow, you're early! Were you here long?"

"No," Meiru said. "You're on time, it's okay."

"Good!" He dug a hand into his pocket. "Where are they… ah-ha!" With a flourish, he pulled out a pair of tickets.

"Wow, it's for all the rides!" Meiru read. Even the tickets looked different; they were on plastic cards instead of being paper slips. She felt a little worry slip away as she looked at the pink and green lines that crisscrossed the front of the card. Things had changed here; this would be fine.

They fed the cards into the entrance gate and were admitted. "I never get to come here," Junichi said as they looked around. There was a new castle-shaped building to the left that seemed to be a haunted house, what with all the bats in the windows. "I've got soccer practice all the time, and most nights I help with theatre crew, so I use the weekends to catch up on sleep or hang out most of the time." Meiru nodded, thinking about how strange it was that a place could change so completely. "Sakurai, what do you do after school?"

"Oh, things are pretty quiet for me," Meiru lied. She couldn't think of anything else to do. What she did after school was a national secret, and her nonexistent home life wasn't something she wanted turned into another piece of gossip and spread around the school. "I just practice piano and study a lot."

"You're into music? That's cool. Why don't you join orchestra or jazz band?" Junichi asked.

"Well… I have to take care of a lot of things at home." Junichi looked curious. Meiru explained carefully, "I have pets that only I take care of, and one of my relatives is ill, so I do a lot of chores and errands… I'm really just too busy to take on any extra responsibilities right now." As they kept walking, and even as Junichi expressed his disappointment, Meiru mentally reiterated the main points of her story to herself: studying, piano, pets, errands for ill relation.

"You should try to do stuff with us on the weekends sometime," Junichi said next. "It's great that you care so much about your family, but you should be able to hang out with other people sometimes, too."

"Hopefully I'll be able to," Meiru said. "It depends on how Grandma's feeling." It gave her a slightly giddy feeling: now she had a grandmother who lived in the area! This lie was almost developing faster than she could embellish it.

"I gotcha. Hey, let's do the teacups!" There wasn't much of a line, so they were able to sit across from each other in a blue teacup moments after they walked up. "How fast do you like it?"

"I can handle pretty fast," Meiru said, grinning. "How fast do _you_ like it?"

"Well… hmm. How fast does it go?" There was a clunk of machinery, and the ride came to life.

"Let's find out!" Meiru gripped the round plate in the center and started spinning. Junichi joined in, and soon their teacup was whirling around so fast that Galaxyman was cheering on Junichi's shoulder.

Roll tried venturing out for a few seconds, said, "Meiru-chan, I'm getting dizzy just by watching this," and retreated into the safety of her PET.

"This is awesome!" Junichi laughed, sitting back for a moment to enjoy the lights of the tent that enclosed the ride spinning around them. Meiru gave it a few more spins, then did the same. The park outside the tent was a blur to her, focusing her eyes on one person impossible for more than a second. Junichi reached over to keep it spinning, but the ride came to halt before he could return them to maximum speed. "I know how fast I like it now!" Junichi stood. "Whoa, I'm dizzy," he laughed.

"Same," Meiru giggled, steadying herself on the white center plate before exiting the teacup. She looked over at Junichi, and he grinned back. "Let's do the haunted house next!"

"Yeah!" As they walked, Junichi noticed something on the ground. "That's weird," he said.

"What?"

"There's train tracks, but then they've stuck the go-karts over some of it. No train," Junichi observed.

Meiru looked down to see them for herself, and then she remembered what had happened. The train had derailed itself and continued forward, and she'd been running for her life at Netto's side, and—

"I wonder what happened to it?"

—Netto had tackled her to safety, the train crashing somewhere behind them. It was one thing for the park to have completely changed; that, Meiru could deal with. Stumbling across this, the reminder that those kinds of saves would never happen again, was almost too much. But she knew that, had known that for years, and Junichi was not Netto. He wasn't even much _like_ Netto.

The same park, then, but different enough.

"Are you okay?" Junichi asked.

"Just fine," Meiru said.

"You sure? We can sit down for a second, if you want…"

"Nah, I'm good now," Meiru said cheerfully. "Come on, let's go!"

They got into line. Meiru looked around at the bats hanging above the queue and made sure she still had her story: study, piano, pets, sick grandmother. Maybe she'd had some kind of malady overtake her while riding that train—a heart attack, maybe?—and that was what Meiru had been thinking about.

The ride attendant wordlessly gestured Meiru and Junichi into the entry, where coats and umbrellas sat covered in dust. "I heard they don't dust in here," Junichi said. "That's why it looks so real." On the mantelpiece, the owl statues turned their eyes toward Meiru and Junichi as they approached. "Do you think they've got people in here?" he asked as they walked past and to the hallway.

"Probably not in the spring," Meiru said, looking around at the self-opening and closing doors. At the far end, a knocker raised itself from the door and fell, rapping three times before going still again. Organ music began to play as they approached the only open door, which light flickered from. "It's weird how quiet it's been so far, though—"

Inside stood a figure wearing a white sheet, surrounded by a horde of bats—no, Meiru realized as she looked closer, bat robots, probably every single one in the haunted house—that were coming for them even before the figure dramatically raised its arms. With a yelp, Meiru fled for the end of the hallway, Junichi close on her heels.

"That was legit scary," Junichi said.

"I don't think those were supposed to be there," Meiru said, pointing behind them. The bats were still coming, low enough to the ground to hit the two teens if they were allowed to keep coming, and the figure in the sheet was looking at them from the doorway.

"What does that mean?"

"That we need to get out of here so I have room, right now!" As they turned the corner, Meiru heard some of the bats hit the wall.

"Keep explaining!" Junichi said as they ran past a self-playing organ.

"They're not very smart, so this isn't a Navi—it's a bunch of viruses, probably one in each—" A grotesque face was suddenly inches from Meiru's nose. She screamed and nearly backpedaled into Junichi. Once they'd regained speed, Meiru finished, "I'm going to fight them off when we get outside, but the quarters are too close here and I can't be dealing with this stuff on top of Operating!"

"Should I just leave that to you, or what?" Junichi asked as they pelted past an ice-themed room, not even stopping long enough for whatever sensor was there to catch them.

"It depends on what we're dealing with." Junichi, to Meiru's surprise, was still keeping up just fine. "And whether we find a baseball bat."

"Not my strength, but I'll do the best I can. Soccer player, remember." Now the keeping up made sense to Meiru. She rounded the corner into a graveyard, which was still not in the park itself but which at least had a higher ceiling. Probably for the best; there was no need to endanger the other guests needlessly—

"Geez, Meiru! I knew you were scary, but I didn't think you were Queen of the Vampires!"

Meiru could have recognized that voice anywhere. _"Stop stalking me!"_

"Don't yell at me!" Black seemed miffed as he moved his PET arm to join his head in peeking in from the stone archway at the exit. "I wasn't here to follow you and your dumb frizzy hair around, and before you ask, I certainly didn't do any of this!"

"It's _wavy_ , not _frizzy_ ," Meiru snapped. She lifted her PET toward the cloud of bats and heard Roll leave shortly after.

"So you guys know each other?" Junichi said.

"Yep!" Black replied with a far too cheerful grin as one of the bats fell to the ground.

Netto had gotten away with half the school knowing he was a Net Savior, but Meiru had always been sternly told to not follow in his footsteps. "Don't you _dare_." She looked down at her PET to find that Roll was already in it.

"I think Galaxyman can help," she said, sounding a little bewildered. "They're just Metools."

"Awesome!" Junichi said, sending his Navi to join in.

"Don't I dare what? It's like you said. I'm your stalker," Black chirped. Another bat fell, and he looked down at his own PET display. "Wow, whoever did this didn't know what they were doing."

Rather than push the subject and give Junichi a chance to pry further, Meiru asked, "If you didn't do this, who did?" Her eyes narrowed. "Was it that girl with the short hair?"

"Like Yumi would care about ruining your date," Black said, rolling his eye. "No, I have no idea who this is."

"They certainly aren't very bright," Meiru noticed. While their Operators had been conversing, Roll, Punk, and Galaxyman had already taken care of another five bats. "I wonder…"

"Look, whoever it is, don't worry about it," Black advised. "If you can survive me, you can survive anyone."

"Thanks?"

Black nodded in a way that seemed kind of like a 'you're welcome'. Meiru had nearly turned her attention to how the Navis were doing when Black gasped, "Oh, you guys are here for the prom, aren't you?"

Meiru immediately turned back around. " _No!_ "

"That doesn't happen for another month," Junichi explained. Meiru thought it was amazing how friendly he could sound to, between Kizuki and Black, what had to be every sort of terrible person on the planet.

"Really?" Black sounded genuinely astonished. "But you were making such a big deal out of it already!"

"We have to prepare for it!" Meiru explained, trying to take a cue from her companion.

"Oh." Black seemed even more confused after hearing that. "What do you do at a prom, anyway?"

"It's like a party," Meiru told him, confused at his confusion. "You dance… There are snacks…"

"There's usually a theme," Junichi supplied.

"So it's… a ball," Black said, a bit disgusted.

"It's not that fancy," Junichi corrected. "I mean, I still have to wear a tuxedo, but it's not _that_ formal."

"So it's like a ball, but everyone's actually nice to each other," Black said.

"Who's inviting you to a ball?" Meiru wondered.

"No one. I serve the food and watch," Black said.

"You've really never heard of prom before?" Junichi asked.

"They don't have them where I'm from," Black said. "I don't think they do, anyway. I didn't go to school after elementary school, so I don't know." For a moment, Meiru thought she could feel some sympathy for him; it seemed like he'd missed a lot of life experiences wherever he'd been studying, and it didn't sound like compensating for that had been a high priority. "Why are you asking so many questions, anyway? It's like you've grown twice as annoying now that you've got a boyfriend, Meiru-chan."

Meiru's pity evaporated. "Then bug off like you obviously want to, Black," she snapped.

"Or like you've grown a second head," Black added as if she hadn't spoken.

"Meiru-chan, we're all done," Roll reported.

"Thanks, Roll." A sudden realization came to Meiru. "I bet you're here because you're jealous that I have a life now!" she said, pointing at Black.

"N—no!" Black's head disappeared behind the archway, and Meiru heard a flustered, "I've already got a life! Going to school and stupid dances and whatever is a waste of time, anyway!"

Meiru smirked and folded her arms. "Then how come you can't come out here and say that?"

"Um, guys… shouldn't we figure out who did this?" Junichi asked.

"Yeah, you're right!" Black said with considerable relief, peeping back out from the behind the archway.

"I didn't see anyone in a white sheet come out while we were here. That person might still be inside," Meiru said.

"Maybe park security already got him," Junichi speculated.

"Or maybe he's so dumb that when we took care of his bats, he didn't know what to do next," Black said. "He might be hiding inside still."

"Let's go!" Meiru said, starting back toward the corridor. The three turned the corner to see the end of a white sheet disappearing down the opposite end. "I guess you were right for once, Black!" Meiru said. "Well done!" They re-entered the ice room to find the culprit trying to hide between two of the ice blocks. "You know you're not supposed to get that close, right?" Meiru asked.

A skeletal figure dropped down in front of the sheet-covered figure, who screamed and scrambled back toward the group. Junichi pulled off the sheet to reveal Kizuki.

"Who are you?" Black asked scornfully. "And why would you attack a—" Catching the look Meiru gave him, he substituted, "—seasoned Netbattler with anything as poorly put-together as that?"

"We know her," Junichi explained. "She's another student at our school."

"Did you really think that was going to make Junichi decide not to take me to prom?" Meiru asked. "There's a difference between 'bad luck follows me around' and 'an obvious prank'."

"Well, whatever! I don't know what makes you think you and your dowdy grandma clothes can just take Junichi out from under everyone else's noses!" Kizuki said indignantly.

"It wasn't her idea," Junichi said.

"And even if it was, you're wasting your energy by trying to go after her," Black said. "You'll never win against her with attacks _that_ weak."

"Not to mention how your prank resulted in damaging park property, so now you get to go talk to security," Meiru added.

Kizuki's reply was a startled "Um, what?"

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Once they'd dropped Kizuki off at the front of the haunted house with an explanation of what the staff would find scattered throughout, Black announced his departure with a melodramatic, "Goodbye, Queen of the Vampires." Meiru just sighed as Black left, too worn out to do much else.

"Hey, Meiru…"

Meiru looked over, startled out of her tired stupor. "Yeah?"

"I know there's a lot more to you than I can see. Y'know, with your grandmother and everything…" he said, gesturing in the direction Black had left in.

Meiru flushed red. "I'm sorry. I know him from something I can't tell people about, and—"

"No, no, it's okay, you don't have to tell me 'till you're ready." He turned toward her. "Like, you're kind of mysterious, and that's cool at first. But you're also really cool yourself, underneath that. I'd like to be a good enough friend to get to know you one day, but until then, you don't have to tell me anything."

"And… you're okay with that?" Meiru asked hesitantly.

"Well, yeah. I get that you're pretty different from anyone else at school, but that's okay. And it's no reason for you to be by yourself." Junichi grinned. "Let's get out of here, 'kay?"

"Sure, I think I've had enough excitement for one day," Meiru said.


End file.
